• "Off the Street" Coffeehouse with the good folk music
• Planning a mini-Woodstock at the football field which the Dad's Club refused to allow after the Parish Council approved
• Fundraising for Bangladesh a la George Harrison
• Hanging out in the dark room
• Birthday parties, parties, and surprise parties!
• Having the two clowns visit me to cheer me up when I had mononucleosis
• Sister Helen's Chemistry and Physics classes
• Mrs. Reuter's English class
• Senior prank days
• Fun school, nice people
• Pet tarantula that I let crawl up Sr. Jacquie's arm
• Wild nights in the parking lot and excursions to Hines Park
• The Pre-Prom Boogie
• Ski team weekends
• Ms. Herbst’s Constitutional Law class
• A little loneliness
• Smoking a jay in the homecoming parade
• Football and basketball games and especially hockey!
• School dances
   

• Our senior trip to Washington DC; somebody got lost. Does anybody remember who???
• Just being a part of it was great!
• Cruising Outer Drive
• Lunch at New Palmers using fake ID
• Nuns & priests
• Doing plays: "Simple Joys Now and Then," "The Wizard of Oz" & "The King and I"
• Pep rallies- go Ravens!
• Detention
• Goofy morning PA announcements
• Talent contests
• Long hair and just trying to be cool!
• Stuffing the VW
• The togetherness of the class is my favorite memory of Benny
• Holding back on my sexuality because "people would talk"- made up for it in college
• Fran & Jerry's Bar (lunches were great)
• Thirty lbs. less, more hair on top of my head, no gray hairs most of all, some great friends lasting friendships
• Good times involving a lot of activities and fun just being in school
• If my kids could even have half the fun/experiences that I had at Benedictine, I would be very pleased!
• Homecoming Parade floats going down Outer Drive; you don't see that anymore!
• Sister Ann Pat – who I thought was a tough teacher, but she actually was a good English teacher and encouraged me to write.
   

• Interviewing Jane Fonda for the school paper, The Raven
• Skipping school to go skiing and falling off the chair lift in midair
• Body painting a la "Laugh In" (and one time accidentally using permanent markers)
• Fraternizing with the public school children
• Slipping off to "bad neighborhoods" to purchase GIQ's and attend jazz concerts at Watts Mozambique Lounge
• Forays over to Canada and getting strip-searched at the Canadian border
• Being the first sophomore class to win the Homecoming float "We'll Rocket to the Top"
• Fr. Raphael encouraging everyone to sneak out of class when one of the students fell asleep in class
• Sr. Jacqie saying, "Let's rap"
• Ring Day
• ‘50sWeek
• Trips with Sr. Betty to the Plymouth State Home
• Gary Guerriero, the ultimate smart alec, teaching drafting
• Gil's Hamburgers, Kim's Gardens, Criegers, Family Buggy, Staffords, Knudsens Bakery
• Dances and hanging out at the Rosedale Park Community Center
• Flower parties for the floats
• The legal drinking age being 18 and hanging out at the Cartwheel Bar
• Art with Sr. Jacqie
• The smoke in the restroom
• Road trips
   

• Walking to school in the snow; my kids don't believe me!
• Dunkin' Donuts
• Controversial articles in the school paper
• Sylvia Swindlehurst teaching drama
• Abolishing the dress code
• Patchouli oil, love beads, bell bottom hip-hugger jeans
• Head shops - the Trading Post - where we could make our own candles and buy papers, pipes, and incense
• Getting thrown out of Latin
• Weekend wanderings through the deserted halls of Maybury Sanitarium
• Sneaking into the school in the middle of the night to put a toilet on the principal's desk
• The hilarious "Sandusky Disaster"
• Learning in sex education class that boys were toasters and girls were ovens; lots of laughing
• Feeling alienated & ostracized which I attribute to my ADD, a Napoleon complex, as well as my arrogant & obnoxious mouth
• Greektown
• Feeling justified in bigotry toward gay people, i.e. "Marion the Librarian"
• Mr. Cool getting PO'd because I misspelled his name
• Arguing with a priest over the issue of creationism vs. evolution
• My first and most innocent love who taught me how to kiss but we never went all the way. Why?
• Too many hours in detention hall because my teachers misunderstood my good intentions
• Watching a fellow classmate tear up detention slips & throw them as confetti at a basketball game to show contempt for the system
   

• Intricate covers to The Raven that communicated multiple agendas & not so subtle sarcasm
• Harboring a fugitive from his mom
• Caught liberating a chemistry scale for high minded goals
• Streaking on ice skates in front of my fantasy love
• A health snack at Grand Prix Beer & Wine consisting of grape pop or Mountain Dew, apple flavored Big Wad, and a package of HoHo's
• Eating breakfast at 3 a.m. at the Clock Restaurant
• The irony of having marriage class being the only class I failed at Benny, and yet I've been married for over 20 years
• Living in a moment of social transformation: the Vietnam War, the sexual revolution, women's liberation, emerging debate within the Catholic Church, witnessing our city's physical deterioration and racial polarization, dealing with sexual identity
• Observing an alarmed Ralph Fader as he realized that a bite had been taken out of his meticulously wax paper wrapped bologna sandwich made on Wonder Bread and generously seasoned with ketchup
• Everyone piling into Don Perkin's Volkswagen in the school gym
• People walking out of our reader's theater production of "Hair"
• The great comedy team of Markham & Moylan
• Carol Borsa's chocolate chip cookies
• Senior prank
• All the uproar over performing "Simple Joys, Now and Then" in church.
   

Reprinted from the
25th Anniversary Reunion booklet.