Riverside 50th reunion digs up past

In 1988, when Howard Dennison sat at his kitchen table and wrote a letter to be placed in a time capsule for Riverside secondary school, he recalls getting chills as he wrote he wasn’t sure if 25 years later he’d be around when they dug it up.

But Saturday he was.

“I have a real emotional and sentimental attachment to what’s going on here today. It’s very important to me,” said Dennison about the capsule being unearthed last week and presented to former staff and students during the school’s 50^th reunion celebrations. Dennison organized filling the keepsake with Riverside memorabilia and remembers spending hours planning and plotting its contents, then having the box made by the school’s welding teacher and tarred in the school’s auto shop before being buried.

Revealing the time capsule was a highlight of the two-day reunion, said organizing committee chair Elliott Dunlop.

The capsule included newspaper clippings, a Riverside jersey, an audio recording and several other items along with Dennison’s letter, that sent greetings from school’s 25^th anniversary and best wishes for the school’s 50^th.

Digging up the old memories was a nostalgic experience for many, said Dunlop, and especially for former teachers like he and Dennison who were present when it was buried.

“It was quite emotional actually,” Dunlop said about digging up the capsule.

And Dennison couldn’t agree more. He was overwhelmed – getting choked up and shaking his hands in the air – as he recalled being a member on the school’s 25^th reunion organizing committee. And he was all smiles as he spoke about how touching it has been being a member of the same committee this year for the school’s 50^th reunion celebrations.

“I’ve been really looking forward to this,” said Dennison, who taught at Riverside from 1965 to 1996. “Riverside, really, has been my life.”

After attending Riverside high school as a student from 1954 to 1959, Dennison said he went on to study to become a teacher, not knowing he would soon return to the east Windsor school.

“To come back and to be hired as a teacher, I thought I had died and gone to heaven,” recalled Dennison with a laugh following the time capsule presentation that attracted hundreds to the school’s cafeteria Saturday afternoon.

“For me it was a joy,” said Dennison, whose brother and two sons also attended Riverside. “I know it sounds corny, but I liked it here, I really did.”

Dunlop, who taught at the school from 1969 to 1989, said the reunion is an opportunity for former students and staff to reconnect.

“It’s for people to see their friends and come back together,” said Dunlop. “That’s what it’s all about. It’s not about the school, it’s about the people, and these things have to happen.”

About 1,500 people attended the school’s 50^th anniversary celebrations Friday and Saturday, Dunlop said.

More to come.