MARCH 8, 1963

How do we measure time? Do we measure it in seconds or minutes or days and years, or do we do it with events? Are the events in our lives that measure out the periods less precise, but more relevant? Some events are triumphs, and some are agonizing, burying us in a deep sea of sadness and regret.

The triumphs seem to be but fleeting moments, yet the agony has a way of lingering, well after it occurs.

March 8th, 1963 was a day of infamy for a Bellport High School filled with teenagers. Boys and girls, or should I say children awoke that day with the idea of continuing their education, learning new things that would build their futures. Some planned for that evening and weekend. Some still had plans to make. Yet, no one that morning anticipated what fate had planned for them.

This event would transform a small town into national attention: turning lives 180 degrees in the process. We were all shocked into the unthinkable, the unbelievable, and the unfathomable.

We watched in horror and confusion, as explosions and flames leaping from the very bowels of our school, the smoke pouring from the open windows. In horror we watched as our schoolmates lifted up the windows: only to disappear in a cloud of ominous dark grey clouds. Even worse, we witnessed them leaping from the second story to the ground below, in frantic desperation!

But the horror and confusion were there only a short while. Soon people were reacting everywhere. The fire department arrived from many distances besides Bellport. Soon people were rescuing and carrying off the hurt and suffering. There were Mr. Mahoney, and Mr. Roberge, teachers who taught us that nothing but the best would do, gave us an example that day. Carrying kids away from the building, climbing the ladders and reaching into the smoke filled uncertainty of the fire from the second floor. They were saving lives!

I distinctly recall Mr. Feeney, looking dejectedly down at his feet, as the building he ran, he directed and he loved, dissolved in flames and smoke and ashes.

But we were not alone the fate filled day, there was a giant helping hand, one that refused to let anyone die, the hand of God. He held Mr. Mahoney, and Mr. Roberge, and guided their efforts.

It was a strange day, in a strange year, one that saw our young President assassinated in Dallas Texas that November.

For the next nine months, as we would attend school on half-day sessions, the stench of smoke would fill our nostrils, a reminder of what had happened.

My class, the class of 1964, will forever be linked with those events that year. The school itself, every freshman, sophomore, junior and senior will forever more be one body, no matter when they graduated.