Fifty years ago................................

The 1964-65 New York World's Fair..........................



You can read more about the New York Worlds Fair here.  I was a seventh grader at Ardmore Junior High School in suburban Philadelphia in 1964.  Harry Donald, the principal of Ardmore Junior High at the time, was an amazingly dedicated and creative man.  He and his staff got the notion that the World's Fair was a once-in-a-generation important and educational event, and that the only right and proper thing was for the whole school to go visit it for a day.  Mind you, there were some 900 kids at Ardmore.  Lesser mortals might have given thought to the cost and logistics involved and said never mind.   Harry Donald looked at it as a worthy challenge.  We had every fund raiser you could imagine that year and I'm sure Harry Donald did some quiet fund raising on the side.  Anyway, very early on one fine spring morning, all 900 students, the teachers and staff, and about 200 parents boarded a special Pennsylvania Railroad train and headed to Flushing Meadows, New York.   It was a beautiful and warm day.  We had lots of fun and I'm sure learned interesting things.  Most importantly, in a feat that defies understanding, everybody safely made it on time to board the train back to Philadelphia.   Can you imagine a principal taking on such a challenge today?