Clifton SHS 50th Jubilee - Day 1

4/19/14

After a tour of Toowoomba with Peter, Graeme & Loretta, we returned for lunch with Alison, daughter Tony & her son Aaron. 

 Toowoomba Japanese Gardens, located behind the University.

Front: Aaron, Peter, Toni.

Back: Graeme, Loretta, Alison.

After lunch we hit the road so Graeme & Loretta could drop me off at the Club Hotel in Clifton. Kevin, the manager, showed me the room and reviewed to key situation in case I returned from the Jubilee after the pub closed, then the 3 of us were off to explore the one block area that is basically Clifton in its downtown entirety. Since that took a mere 5 minutes, we went on a mission to find the post office, the swimming pool where I taught and the teacher flat that I lived in. And, as life would have it, we never found the post office, the pool was totally changed with the addition of a covered shed & the installation of a larger pool, and the teacher flat was nowhere to be found (sigh).

Mandy Beatson, one of the organizers of the Jubilee weekend and the current principal, Joy’s right hand assistant, picked me up about 6:15 PM and we headed up to the Clifton Reserve for the night’s festivities. By 6:30 a steady stream of people began to arrive and most of us struggled to read name tags that could have benefited from a larger type font for those of us who didn’t bring our reading glasses. (It was really difficult trying to look inconspicuous as you sidled up close enough to read who was who – especially considering that most people change drastically in a 40-year time period. (ha ha)

Mandy introduced me to Jaden, a young man who was conducting interviews & taking photos for the newspaper article on the Jubilee. (I think he was young enough to be my grandchild). Jaden interviewed me and took some photos for the article and then I gave him my email address so I might be able to get a copy.

While Jaden was interviewing me, 2 of my former students, Craig & Jeff Ebeneter, came by with their wives and told me to come find them when I finished, so I caught up with them right after over many laughs and some beers. 

Gradually, as the crowd of almost 300 attendees, I located 2 teachers I taught with, Marilyn Hamilton & John Archibald; many students and their spouses; and the current principal, Joy, and her husband, who was the current physical education teacher (great couple). Joy didn’t mind me sharing some strategies for avoiding substitution duties for absent teachers with her husband while he was down at the pool teaching swimming – the main one being, don’t answer the phone when the school calls to tell you to cover the next period – just turn up the music and keep on going. She got a great laugh out of that one.

There were so many great stories, but 2 in particular made my evening. One young lady, Natalie Buckel, came up to me calling, “Miss Totaro, Miss Totaro!” Now when I turned and saw her I knew she was definitely not old enough to have been one of my high school students. She was so excited to tell me that she had me for Phys. Ed while in 2^nd grade at Nobby, one of my 1-2 teacher schools that I used to visit on my motorcycle once a week for 30 minutes of PE. Then she said how she and the other students (usually less than 20 in grades 1-7) absolutely loved me and so looked forward to my visits to the school to teach PE. She said all the kids loved the games I had them play in a very tiny pool behind the school even though the thing was covered in algae. (I personally would never have gotten into that water). 

Wow, was I ever humbled! I continue to be so overwhelmed by the impact that I’ve had on some of the students that I taught and worked with over my 9 years of teaching and my 24 years of working with school yearbook staffs.

But it was definitely the 2^nd story that was so hilarious it made my evening – perhaps even my life. About 4 hours into the festivities, I needed to take a break, so I plopped down in one of the chairs near the photography station (something I should have done earlier because it was the best place to catch people as their graduating class posed for a group photo). I was approached timidly by a young lady, Karen Ferguson, who I taught in my English class. Her husband, Vaughan Pauli, was there as well, and he hung back, watching to see what the reaction would be after she spoke to me, before he introduced himself to me. She introduced herself to me, and then confessed to me that she was so very sorry for something she did almost 40 years ago that she wanted to apologize to me personally for and had been majorly stressing over it for months once she saw on Facebook that I was coming to the Jubilee. (To say I was utterly intrigued by this opening would have been putting it mildly. I couldn’t recall a single incident from my 2 years that I would have classified as being even mildly disrespectful while I was teaching). So she proceeded to tell me that in a journaling assignment she turned into me she had written, “I hate Miss Totaro” in shorthand (not realizing that I had taken shorthand in high school). Then she went on to say that when I passed her on the stairwell the next day, I stopped her, said hello and mentioned that I took shorthand in high school. To say she was mortified would be putting it mildly. My reaction to this confession? Oh my god – I cracked up! I told her that that was the funniest story I had heard all night, and that I was going to include it in my blog, and that if there were any prizes for the highlight of the evening, she had just won it. And then I told her the kicker – that I didn’t even remember the incident at all! Once her husband saw us laughing – one of us as if a heavy burden had just been lifted – he realized it was safe to approach. When I assured him I did not remember the incident, but found it hilarious, he said, “Thank God. Now she might stop grinding her teeth every night!” And Karen’s reaction? “OK now I guess it’s safe to friend you on Facebook.”

Well, how can you top that my friends???

Vaughan, Karen and AnnMaree

I won’t even go into the importance of life lessons learned from this story – since I’m hopeful that all of you can draw your own conclusions from it.