At Van Gray’s first high school reunion, the guys talked about how successful they were. Five years later, it was about trophy wives and children. Five years after that it was vacations and retirement planning. Then …
“The last one, I gotta tell ya, I was just hysterical. Four jocks at the school sat around, and they discussed the merits of Kevlar replacement joints versus stainless steel … your priorities change as time goes on.”
Seventy-seven-year-old Gray’s 60th Lord Byng secondary reunion comes up this June. For Gray, sitting on a bench back at his old high school, his bright blue T-shirt declaring, “Pain is temporary, pride is forever” in bold white letters, it’s a chance to look back at what’s changed in six decades.
“All of that cliché Fonzie stuff was really quite true when it came to the poodle skirts and the bobby socks and the angora sweaters,” he said of his high school years and graduation in 1955. “We had none of the graphics that you see on people now.”
A Vancouverite his whole life, the retired artistic designer grew up delivering the Province as a boy in post-Second World War West Point Grey, near Locarno Beach. School fashion was influenced by the war.
“There was a rage of bomber jackets with big fur collars because there was still [bombers] floating around,” he said. “I hate to say it, but I was a kid during the war but I remember it vividly.”
Fast forward 60 years.
Byng’s modern walls are lined with grey metal lockers, some decorated with “happy birthday” signs. The halls are relatively quiet save for muffled classroom chatter.
In the ’50s, a weekly radio broadcast announced school updates and sports games. Kids got the strap. Hall monitors were other students and the “eyes and ears” of the school. But if you acted rowdy, Gray said, they didn’t really intervene.
“It was primarily psychological,” he said. “Now you’d probably get pounded to pulp if you excited anyone for anything.”
Today, cameras are the eyes. Kids get detention for misbehaving. Hoodie-wearing teens traipse the halls holding smartphones — a major difference to kids from six decades ago.
“Half of them are hooked up to something,” said Gray. “[Kids are] wired, and the outside world doesn’t exist outside their buds.”
For the kids who listened to Patty Page and Bill Haley, face-to-face interaction was all they had. But actual face time also allowed them to get to know each other, said Gray. Hordes of a dozen or more teens would walk down the street and it was normal. Relationships grew from kids talking to each other in those big groups.
“There weren’t too many real big mysteries,” said Gray. “You took the time and trouble to get to know people. And you didn’t make a project of it, it just happened.”
For current Byng grad Shevonne Cheung, texting in class is normal. Kids date, but Cheung, 17, notices it more in the younger grades. Modern Byng students don leggings and sweatpants — a sharp contrast to Gray’s days of navy blue sweaters, cotton shirts, and cream cords.
“It’s pretty laid back actually at Byng, compared to say, Churchill, where people are dressing to impress,” said Cheung.
For Gray, high school dances were “great sport” and students jived to band-led music. “Rock and roll was just the beginning,” he said.
Cheung, whose student council duties had her selling tickets for three weeks straight, was thrilled that there was even one school dance this year.
“I was super happy about it happening this year, even though we had to downscale it because of the amount of people.” She said though dances are a once-a-year event at Byng they happen more often at other schools whose students “actually turn out.” Last year’s dance at Byng didn’t happen because not enough tickets were sold.
But though dances might have declined at Byng for the moment, Cheung said its teachers take the time to get to know the students.
“I’ll definitely come back and visit some of my teachers ‘cause they’ve really impacted my life,” she said. One in particular was her physics teacher, whose attitude strongly influenced her own, she said.
And something else is different.
High school kids’ attitudes have shifted in Gray’s eyes, whose daughter, nephew and grandson also went to Byng. “Their sights are set on not getting through school but beyond,” said Gray. “They’re doing what it takes to continue on the next step. And that’s quite a different thing.”
Cheung said she never had the feeling of merely getting through high school. She’s excited to start the computer science program at UBC this fall and has her sights set on law school after that.
“I think I’ve gotten a pretty good education at Byng,” she said.
Gray expects a lot of the same old and new discussions at his 60th high school reunion. He said no one’s really changed that much over the years and people still share the same values.
So how was his time at Byng?
“I cannot think of an unenjoyable experience. I really can’t. I know that sounds awfully Pollyanna but I’m glad I went here,” said Gray. “This is an unusual school, and I can’t tell you why … but I can only address the results in people that I see at the reunion. They’re my litmus test and they haven’t let me down yet.”
@Shannon1726
