Phillipsburg Catholic High School Memories - Harvey Minchin

I graduated from PCHS in 1982. When I think back at my years at PC many things come to mind - a lot have to do with the band since I was in it all four years of high school but there are many other memories too.

Band Football - During football season the marching band had practice after school several days a week. There was about an hour between the time school let out and the time band practice started. After a quick change of clothes many of us went to the field between the school and the nun's convent and played football. The best was when it snowed and you could really slide around.

Band Trips - The band trips were always a great time - especially the overnight trips. The overnight trips to Washington DC for the St. Patrick's Day Parade were great - touring Washington, the Smithsonian, the White House, Arlington National Cemetery, and other sight seeing stops. Then we did Washington as a day trip for the parade a few years - that made it a rather long day. The other overnight trip we took was Niagara Falls to march in the Cherry Blossom Festival. That was the only time I've been to Niagara Falls and this too was a really good trip. The picture at the right is a bunch of us at one of the lookout points part way down the falls - all looking like penguins in the black raincoats.

Santa Clause - Most of the time during high school I wasn't a trouble maker but I had a moment or two. One year the band was going to play for Santa Clause's arrival at the Hillcrest Mall on a Saturday. Since there was no music for the drums for the songs they were going to play I suggested to the band director, Charlie King that they play without drums. He made some comment about anybody could cover the drum parts so I thought good, let somebody else do it. My brother and I didn't go to play and then went to watch - big mistake. Needless to say we got in trouble for it and called to the principal's office and all but it wasn't too bad. I thought it was pretty amusing at the time and I still do.

This picture at the right shows part of the drum line and a few others.

During my 4 years at PC I was in the marching band, concert band, jazz band, all county band, pep band, and the pit orchestra the school play each year. I enjoyed all these experiences from playing the music to the bus trips to spending time with the friends I made in the bands. And all the music led me to major in music at college and my current music business as a professional musician - even though it is only part time right now.

Ski club - Killington, Vermont. This trip was a lot of fun and the skiing was pretty good. It snowed on Saturday so only part of the mountain was open but the whole mountain was open on Sunday. One story I always thought was funny was on Saturday night a bunch of us called a taxi and all piled into the taxi station wagon that came - there must have been 10 or 12 of us. We went to town to a restaurant to eat dinner. When the waitress took our order somebody commented that I could buy alcohol since I had turned 18 by then and the age must have been 18 in Vermont and the waitress said we were in New Hampshire. Nobody knew we crossed the state line or that we were that close. We thought we were only a few miles from the hotel we probably shouldn't have taken off like that or crossed the state line but it makes a good story.

Drums - One year we picked up some used drums and didn't like the color so a few of us decide to recover them. Here's a picture of  (from left to right) Chip, Steve, me and my brother Tom hard at work.

Caving - I was involved with the caving club a few years and if you like crawling in dark holes and getting filthy then this sport is for you. Some of the caves were fairly tame, almost boring, but you have to start somewhere when you have people that have never done it before. A few of the caves were really neat with small crawl spaces, walls to climb, some big rooms, stalagmites and stalactites, and even a bat or two.

Classes - Some classes seemed like a waste of time and just for credit and here I am now actually benefiting from that typing class - imagine that.
And my Intro to Calculus class in high school helped me in my Calculus I class in college - for the first half the semester I wasn't lost. After what we covered in high school was done the rest of the college semester was a struggle but I survived. I guess I learned some stuff after all. The thing I hated most about that class was when the whole class had to go to the board and work on a problem and I remember many times just standing there totally lost looking around and being thankful I wasn't the only one.

See Seymour - Seymour was the Biology class mascot - sort of. The Biology teacher, Mrs. Coffin, had a stuffed animal called Seymour - Seymour was a duck. It all started simple enough as a joke on the side black board in her classroom one day.
See Seymour.
See Seymour run.
That sort of thing. It grew to a point where there was a new story several times a week - put on the board after school. A few of us worked on the story complete with graphics and everything - Seymour was made from the cursive form of a capital S with a beak, an eye, feet and all. I know me and Chris did a lot of it and I think my brother Tom and a few other people waiting around after school for band practice often helped - or at least observed. Most of it was rather silly like having Seymour go see the Rocky Horror Picture Show and not being able to yell "Lips" at the beginning of the movie because he didn't have any. And then there were technical difficulties complete with elevator music then a "And now back to our show" with a picture of the back of a TV set. There were many Seymour episodes and unfortunately I can't really remember them - I must be getting old.

After the success of Seymour - we had a spin off in the Spanish teacher's room. Her name was Mrs. Green so that character was Senorita G and was probably just a silly as Seymour but written in spanish then Mrs. Green corrected our Spanish grammar and everything.

Wildwood - The grand finale of the high school experience was the trip to Wildwood for a week after graduation. This was tradition for each graduating class and we kept the tradition alive. There were a lot of us that went and got a bunch of rooms at a motel a few blocks from the beach. We did the beach and boardwalk thing all week. Stayed up late, played tennis by the street lights, went to the all night pizza shops and stayed up all night once to watch the sun come up the following morning. And if I remember correctly there was even a day trip to Atlantic City for a little bit of gambling. We survived the week without any major incidence and had a great time.

Miscellaneous memories:
Getting rowdy at basketball games.
Playing war ball in gym class.
P1We1 in Yemestry class - should have been P1V1 in Chemestry class but the teacher's accent made some words hard to understand.