G&G News Briefs

A series of brief stories from 1990 and 1991, featuring members of the Class of 1990

FARMINGTON HILLS (May 29, 1990) - A.P. English 12 had one last assignment: The class took on the roles of characters from and authors of the written works studied during the past year. In these roles, they would discuss various current issues in a "Meeting of the Minds."

Mrs. Laura Sparrow adapted this idea from a feature that appeared on "The Steve Allen Show" during the 1950's, in which Allen hosted dinners for famous people of the past. Likewise, each of five groups had a host and several literary characters (such as Beowulf, Lysistrata and Hamlet) and/or authors (Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare).

FARMINGTON HILLS (June 14-15, 1990) - Harrison's graduation night was also the night of Game 5 of the 1990 NBA Finals. The defending NBA Champion Detroit Pistons were out to beat the Portland Trail Blazers to clinch their second NBA title; the host Blazers were trying to come back from a three-games-to-one deficit. Portland had a 90-83 lead late in the game. Meanwhile, many of Harrison's newest grads were busy chomping on pizza, vanilla soft ice cream, popcorn and subs; playing casino-style games; jumping around in the inflatable Moonwalk and dunking Coach Sutter in the Dunk Tank. Few were watching the game.

Those who were hoping the Pistons would lose (so they could return home and clinch the NBA title at the Palace of Auburn Hills) were in shock when they learned that Detroit pulled out the final victory, 92-90, thanks to Vinnie "Microwave" Johnson's jump shot with 0.7 seconds left.

FARMINGTON HILLS (June 1990) - Carl Johnson livened up at least a couple of local graduation parties with his volleyball set. He brought it to the graduation parties of Matt Paletz (June 24) and Dana Apfelblat (June 30). At the first one, a volleyball game competed for attention with the Dave Poelke Band's final performance. The volleyball set endured some abuse, such as holes in the net and a few collapses.

FARMINGTON (July 11, 1990) - Jenny Fitzgerald was one of two "Miss Congenials" at the 1990 Miss Farmington-Farmington Hills pageant. According to the Farmington Observer, it was the first time in pageant history that two contestants shared such an award.

Fitzgerald was 1989's Homecoming Queen and was a Homecoming Court member in 1988. Sponsored by Metrobank of Farmington, she was the only 1990 HHS graduate in the pageant.

According to a November 1989 Catalyst report, Fitzgerald "wanted to do it for the experience and to see how well I could do." She also mentioned her experience from the dance and fashion shows she did for her dance classes.

The pageant was held at Vladimir's Restaurant on Grand River, the site of the Class of 1990's ten year reunion.

FARMINGTON HILLS (July 25, 1990)- Jim Cannon got a big haircut before going off to Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. During his senior year at HHS, he let his hair grow long, because it was his last opportunity to do so. As part of a strict dress code, BYU does not allow its male students to have long hair.

Cannon had to go on a two-year mission while at BYU. He envied his older brother Sam ('88) in one respect: Sam had his mission in Tahiti, mainly because he took French (which is spoken in Tahiti) at Harrison High, whereas Jim took Spanish. "I'm afraid I'll have to go off to Panama or Colombia or some other drug country for my mission," Jim said. Jim began his mission in Brazil (where the predominant language is Portuguese) in 1992.

FARMINGTON HILLS (October 12, 1990) - "The life of a frog. That's the life for me." -Bart Simpson, in the episode of "The Simpsons" in which Bart blew up the school toilets with a cherry bomb and got deported to France (The Crepes of Wrath, April 15, 1990).

Madame Pierette (Orlich) Simpson, Harrison's top French teacher, loves frogs. A showcase in her classroom, room 341, was filled with various toy frogs.

In late 1988, she received a Baby Kermit doll as a Christmas present, but around February of 1990, it was missing. It would not be replaced for eight months.

In May 1990, Madame had been preparing three A.P. French IV students for the AP French Exam. While preparing for the oral response part of the exam, Madame asked one, Mark Rabinowitz, what he would do if he had a Mercedes.

"I didn't have a car at the time, so I thought of what I would do if I had a car at all. So I said, 'Si j'avais un Mercedes, j'irais aux... garage sales,'" recalls Rabinowitz. (Translation: 'If I had a Mercedes, I would go to garage sales.')

In June, he found a Baby Kermit at--you guessed it--a garage sale! (No, he wasn't driving a Mercedes.) He gave it on October 12 to Madame during a visit to Harrison High. She promptly named it "Louis," after the French name that Rabinowitz adopted when he began taking French at Harrison in 1986. Madame married Mr. Simpson (not Homer, not Bart, definitely not O.J., maybe Orlando?) in December 1990.

By the way, Rabo, French for garage sale is braderie.

MEADVILLE, PA (December 8, 1990): The Hawk football team didn't threepeat in 1990, but Jenny Church can say that she witnessed a football championship at her school for three years in a row. After graduating from HHS, Church went to Allegheny College. Allegheny's Gators won the NCAA Division III national football title, defeating Lycoming, 21-14 in overtime. Church, at that time, was a copy editor for The Campus, Allegheny College's newspaper.

EAST LANSING, MI (April 27, 1991): While all eyes were on the quarterback battle involving Mill "The Thrill" Coleman (more about him here), one of his Harrison football teammates, Joe George, also debuted in the Green-White scrimmage--as a cheerleader. He made the 9-man, 12-woman squad earlier in the year. At 5'11" and 185 lb., George played running back and defensive end for the Hawks, but he would have had to "bulk up" (gain additional weight and strength) to play either position in college, and he decided against that.

ANN ARBOR, MI (September 1991): Seven 1990 Harrison graduates had a reunion of sorts when they took the same class at the University of Michigan in the fall of 1991. G&G believes it to be the record for most HHS 1990 graduates enrolled in a college course in the same semester (at least until eight or more people from our Class of 1990 can prove they took the same course at the same time somewhere else, anyway--Ed.).

They were Dana Apfelblat, Lori Fox, Shannon McCormick, Matt Paletz, Mark Rabinowitz, Debbie Stein, and Rebecca Stern. The class in question was Religion 201, an in-depth course that covered and compared four religions: the religion of the ancient Israelites, followed by Judaism, Christianity and Islam.