This year the Andover High School All-Class Reunion will be held on Saturday, July 12. Lily Ordway has invited us back to the Ordway Recreational Area in Danbury. It’s a time of good food, good friends, and good times.

We moved the date out a week as the Fourth of July is on a Friday, and those of us who work the whole day at the Andover Fourth of July celebration couldn’t pull another celebration together on the fifth. We had also heard from some alumni that plane reservations would be difficult around the holiday.

I was browsing through old issues of The Blue and White Banner, our school newspaper. The paper is old and brittle, but the writing is still fresh and crisp. These newspapers give little glimpses of lives and times, some of people long passed.

I am continually amazed at the variety and content of these aged pages, which include class news, poetry, stories, contests, and little inside jokes which are long forgotten. The best part of our reunions is that we can connect with people who remember these little tidbits that had so much meaning to those of us who attended Andover High School.

Here is a poem that I came across in The Blue and White Banner that is as true today as when this poem by Ben Burroughs appeared in March of 1954:

Judge Not

Judge not lest you be judged yourself,
A saying old and true.
Be careful what you say about
A someone you may view.

Don’t form opinions from the things
You may chance to hear,
For information second hand
Is often out of gear.

Don’t ridicule before you know
What you are speaking of,
But rather practice tolerance
And flavor it with love.

Before you speak, investigate,
And know of what you say,
For by your actions you can cause
Someone a real dismay.

But if you think, I know you’ll break
The chain of wrong and hate
That seems to wrap around the world,
Touching the small and great.