The years are flying by
In the News
MARK ROSMAN
It is difficult for me to believe, but it's true - this week marks the 30th anniversary of my graduation from Manalapan High School. How can three decades have passed by so quickly?

The answer is, I have no clue.

So much has happened to me and to the world since that sunny evening in June 1978 when a class of about 290 seniors were handed their diplomas on the football field behind the high school.

As I reflect back on that evening, I know that some of the people who received their diploma that night are no longer with us.

Over the years and from various sources, I have been informed of the passing of several members of my high school class. While personal experience tells me that the loss of young adults is only natural, it is nonetheless disconcerting to know that people I shared many good times with did not live to see the 30th anniversary of their graduation from high school.

Just recently I read the obituary of one of my Manalapan classmates, Mark "Deacon" Vaughn, a guy everybody liked to be around. He was killed in a motor vehicle accident. It saddened me greatly to read of his passing.

I think of Mark Vaughn around this time of the year because I can still see him carrying an eight-track tape player to graduation practice in the days leading up to the class of 1978's big night. He played the same tape over and over, but no one complained. It was the Rolling Stones' latest album, "Some Girls."

As luck would have it, it was during the week of my graduation from high school that several of my friends and I went to Philadelphia to see the Rolling Stones in concert at (the now demolished) John F. Kennedy Stadium. My buddy Jack Danniel drove the van that his grandfather used for his business - Dick's Radio and TV of Englishtown - to the city of Brotherly Love.

There are so many other memories of Manalapan High School that come back to me all the time. Here are just a few:

• Gym class with Mr. D, and the albums "America's Greatest Hits," and Aerosmith's "Dream On" and "Toys in the Attic" playing over and over again, day after day, during class.

Please do not put on "A Horse With No Name" when I'm around. I may start doing squat thrusts, and you do not want to see that.

• Taking a class on movie making with Mr. Lagana and spending the better part of a weekend morning running up and down Route 522 between the high school and Englishtown filming a movie in which, for some reason I can no longer recall, I had either committed a crime or been the victim of a criminal. There was fake blood involved, I can't remember why, and I never got to see the footage.

• Watching my biology lab partner use the vital organs of a dissected frog to play a practical joke on an unsuspecting classmate. My son, Nate, can't get enough of this story. He's looking forward to taking biology in high school. I can't figure out why.

• Trying to determine who in their right mind thought it would be a good idea, with some educational value, to have seniors read Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock." This may be the worst book I've never read. "Future Shock" was so bad it made "Beowulf" seem interesting.

What is the point of all this memory lane meandering? Simply this: To tell the seniors in the class of 2008 to hold on to your memories, to cherish the friends you have made for as long as you can, because there will come a time when you don't see them anymore and you will miss them.

My friend Jack and I, minus the Dick's Radio and TV van, still get together once a month or so and kick around the old times. It is priceless. My wish for today's seniors is that you, too, will take something away from high school more than just what came out of a book.

Mark Rosman is the managing editor of the News Transcript.