But first...a few final flings! Each Senior class would have worked for four years, making money to help pay for the Senior Trip. Our class of exactly 100 students had made enough money (with a little fee for each from our parents) to go to NEW YORK CITY! We were traveling from Springfield, Illinois to Grand Central Station, NY by train. This was a pretty common school trip to make...and the trains had travel plans for these occasions! We had two cars on the train...one for girls and one for boys!! And for the probably 80 of us who went we would have had probably eight adult couples (16 total) to go as chaperones! Most of these couples were our teachers and their spouses.
We drove the 70 miles to Springfield on school buses...our parents seeing us off at the high school meeting place. Now, this has been over 50 years ago so my memories of the entire trip are in bits and pieces! This was the first train trip for most of us...we had packed lots of snacks to take...and we did eat in a diner car, but it seems like it catered to our age group, not the white table cloth/china and silver diners that come to mind of the era.
And of course there was a lot of laughter and games and very little sleep! When it was time to sleep...according to the chaperones...the girls were to stay in their car and the boys in theirs! Of course, sleep did not come but we did quiet down...because of the admonishment of the chaperones! Previous plans had been made...how to get past them...and sometime in the night... a couple of we girls sneaked up to the boys' car...only because there was a heated game of poker going on...(no money involved)...before we had to split and we wanted to continue it! That seemed to work pretty well...until we got caught! One of my favorite teachers found us playing cards and really yelled at me!!! I had never heard him raise his voice before....but in retrospect, I can see why he did!!!
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| A Passenger train from the '50s! |
Sounds like fun. Looking forward to more.
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