It was at the school’s 85th anniversary reunion, when an older fellow cornered me for some story telling about the pranks he an his friends used to enjoy when they attended Northwood. I think he was from the 1930s or maybe even the late 1920s. “There used to be a path out there behind the school,” he said. “Some of the boys and I would sneak out there and smoke cigarettes. I’m sure it’s gone now.” Later that weekend, I was chatting with a grad from the 1950s who told me with a proud grin that, “there used to be a path out there behind the school. It connected with the Mt Whitney Road. After curfew, we would sneak out down there and meet girls from town who would pick us up in their cars. The trail’s probably gone by now.” You can see where this is going. It wasn’t too long thereafter when I listened to a guy from the mid-1960s who said, “there was a path out there in the woods that headed up Cobble. I bet there are still empty beer cans up there, you know, th e kind you had to open with a church key. Boy, we were quite a bunch.” There’s a wonderful paradox at play here: in a school immersed in traditions, where patterns of action repeat themselves so reassuringly, every player still takes joy and pride in the belief that his actions are spontaneous and his own. I suspect that every generation who has passed through Northwood School, maybe even every class, is firm and proud in the belief that they were the wildest crew the school has ever seen and that the school today is well lucky to have survived their antics. Teacher and coach Jeff Byrne was probably unaware of Northwood history when he suggested that we mandate a wilderness experience for every student by inaugurating an annual Mountain Day in 1977. He didn’t know that in October 1929, for example, The Mirror proudly touted that year’s Mountain Day as “a complete success.” The boys back then got out of classes a little early so that they could catch the Doris for a cruise around Lake Placid and a cookout on Moose Island, arriving back at the dock “in plenty of time to rest up for evening study hall.”
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R E F LE CTI O N S
C entennial E dition