I knew her; the blonde hair, the bright smile and the eyes. Yet I couldn’t place her. She was out of context. But she knew me. The fact I was carrying a notebook and holding a camera was a giveaway.

She could see I was digging through the recesses of my mind for a name and she maneuvered the name tag pinned to her blouse so I could see it.

“Hendricken,” she said. That’s all it took.  For years Dianne Kirk O’Reilly worked at the school office answering phones and questions. I relied on her for years to put me in touch with people at the school.

And then I realized what I had just experienced was being repeated as people entered the fireman’s club overlooking East Greenwich Harbor shrouded in Saturday’s steady rain. Those arriving had the advantage of knowing they would be meeting somebody they hadn’t seen for decades, perhaps as many as 60 years. Even then it could be a stretch, given the Pilgrim Class of 1964 – the first class to graduate from the school – numbered more than 400. For some it only took seconds before excited giggles and hugs.

This was the 60th reunion of the Pilgrim Class of 1964, which I didn’t think I would be able to cover. However, Janelle O’Brien was convincing. She told me how the class weathered double session at Veterans Memorial and that Patricia Teolis McGrath, the organizer, had registered more than 50 who would be attending.

Double sessions?

I’d forgotten that in the 1950s and early 60s, Warwick was one of the fastest growing cities in the country as farmland became housing developments and the city scrambled to build schools. Vets is a big school and one in a string of city high schools over the years, but in order to accommodate all of the city’s students Vets went to morning and afternoon sessions.

Tom Isacco remembers the last day at Vets and the first at Pilgrim. When it came to the last day at Vets, Tom and three of his classmates wore Bermuda shorts to school. The principal was outraged and expelled the four of them. “Kids today run around in their underwear and nobody thinks anything of it.”    It took some explaining, but they were reinstated - not that he was interested in school. He was more interested in the girls.

And he remembers the first day at Pilgrim with buckets in the hallways to catch the leaks from the roof.  Tom received his diploma and went immediately to work. Sometime later he joined the National Guard where he took an interest in the metal shop introducing him to a trade that led him to opening his own metal fabrication business.

“You don’t know who’s who,” Dianne said to Peter Garofolo, who was the class president.

“We haven’t changed a bit,” he joked to those standing around him. Many he remembered from second grade at John Brown Francis School. “We’ve all been friends since then,” he said.

Nancy Pickering Papineau recollected how she applied to only one college, UConn. When she didn’t hear back, she was advised to write a letter. She did and not only was she admitted but informed hers was the first application from a Rhode Islander. She went on to a career in nursing, retiring from Bradley Memorial Hospital in Southington, CT.

John and Judith Liebrich Lopez, who have attended every class reunion that are held every five years, hold the class record for being the first to be married. They tied the knot six weeks after crossing the stage to get their diplomas and, as she noted, just celebrated their 60th anniversary.

It wasn’t an easy start. They had three children and between raising a family, Judy attended classes at URI and became a medical assistant. John went on to become a Warwick firefighter in addition to running his own business. They have four grandchildren and three great grandchildren.

Everyone had a story although the version of events differed. That’s the fun of reunions.

I had the fun of listening in and asking questions which often prompted more stories.