David A. Tait ’68: Standing to Remember
Contemplating 1968
still evokes power-
ful memories. There
were many traumatic
events that year:
the Tet offensive in
Vietnam, the assas-
sinations of Martin
Luther King Jr. and
Robert F. Kennedy, the riots at the Democratic
National Convention, and the Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia. Change was in the air over much
of the world. Some were eager for it, others were
bitterly opposed, and still others were simply
perplexed as they realized Bob Dylan was right
when he sang, “the times they are a-changin’.”
In the enclosed world of St. Paul’s, which the
Rector still referred to as Millville, the Form of
1968 was also of mixed mind. In our Sixth Form
Show, we sang, “I won’t grow up, I’ll never grow
up, not me!” Yet, within months, several members
had drafted what would become known as the
Sixth Form Letter. Many signed it; others wanted
no part of it. The Letter heaped scorn on the
pride and complacency it saw in the School and
demanded many kinds of change, ranging from
greater personal freedom to increased emphasis
on the fine arts.
The School to which many of us returned for
our 45th reunion in May was very different from
the one we left – co-educational; more commit-
ted to the fine arts, mathematics, and the natural
sciences than the School of our day; much more
open to participating in the world beyond its
grounds; more eclectic spiritually than it used to
be; and more diverse in its ethnic and racial com-
position. Perhaps the Sixth Form Letter played
some small part in hastening change at St. Paul’s.
And yet one of the high points of the reunion
had little to do with the turmoil of the 1960s or
the changes that followed. We found ourselves
drawing on some of the oldest traditions of the
School in its most venerable building, the Chapel
of St. Paul, also known as the Old Chapel. Over
the years, seven members of the Form of 1968
have died, and we gathered there to commemo-
rate their lives. How would we do it?
Several members stood up to speak about their
dead classmates. When they were done, others
added their own recollections. All of this took
place within a specially designed service, which
used offerings from the Book of Common Prayer
and the School Prayer Book, hymns from the
Episcopal Church’s Hymnal, and Biblical readings
from Ecclesiastes and St. Paul. These elements
were familiar to us from the daily Chapel services
at SPS we remember from so long ago. An hour
after the service ended, some participants were
still standing and talking outside the Old Chapel.
For many of us, it was a powerful experience to
gather in that place to honor the dead, not only
by recalling our memories of them, but also by
drawing on the School’s Chapel traditions.
Like the world around us, like the School itself,
we have lived through tumultuous changes.
Probably none of us would want the world or
the School to be as it was in 1968. Nor would we
want to be the boys we were then – we did grow
up. And yet we also have learned the wisdom
of St. Paul’s counsel to “hold fast that which is
good.” We needed that Old Chapel, those hymns
and prayers, and those Biblical words to make
sense of the times that have been relentlessly a-
changin’. We will do it again, no doubt, at future
reunions – hopefully even until just one of us is
left standing to remember.
PERSPECTIVE
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