Most Cantabrigians don’t remember a time when Strawberry Hill grew berries as big as a fist, when the 77 bus along Mass Ave was a trolley, or when CRLS was still two separate schools: Cambridge High and Latin, and Rindge Technical School. At the 2024 Rindge Technical School Alumni reunion, the Register Forum heard stories about Cambridge from 60 years ago.
After reciting the pledge of allegiance, singing the national anthem and the old Rindge Tech fight song, and saying grace, the Rindge Tech alumni — all men who graduated before the school became co-ed in 1978 — sat down to reminisce over a meal of stew, steak, and boiled carrots.
“I loved going to Rindge Tech,” said Joseph Braithwaite ’68. “Everybody just got along together.”
The Rindge Tech alumni described busy schedules filled with sports, clubs, and jobs. Hugh and Mike Rivera ’72 were part of the school’s first computer club. Jim Stockwell ’78 played in the band and built the Cambridge City Hall meeting table in his carpentry class. And Bob Chebator ’62 ran the 2-mile for the Rindge track team. “They called me the ‘scholar-athlete’ — I don’t know where they got the scholar part!” he told the Register Forum.
For decades, Cambridge Latin and Rindge Technical were their own respective but adjacent schools, separated by a library (where the bridge is now). “I think we lost a little something when the schools merged,” said Rivera, who became a firefighter after graduating. “We lost that give-and-take, healthy competition feel.”
Many alumni told us that this healthy competition culminated in the Turkey game when the Cambridge Latin football team played the Rindge team. Hugh described a tradition of creating soda tab earrings to represent the Cantabrigians, nicknamed the can-tabs, on game day. “That was the height — that was it,” Rivera said. Since Rindge Tech didn’t yet allow women, female students from Cambridge Latin would volunteer as cheerleaders.
This was the reason why Leslie Oliver ’60 decided to switch schools in his freshman year. “You know why I went to Latin? Because there were girls there,” he told the Register Forum. “I wanted to go to a school with girls.”
Many Rindge Tech students ended up marrying their high school sweethearts from Cambridge Latin. “I took her to the prom, and the rest is history,” said Bob Chebator ’62.
Elsie Scott ’48 was one of the women who graduated from Cambridge Latin. “My favorite years of school were at Cambridge Latin,” she told the Register Forum. “I didn’t think there was too much rivalry — but I guess I was just being studious.”
The two schools merged in 1978. Jim Stockwell ’78 recalled some perks of graduating in the merger year. “I got two diplomas: one from Rindge Tech, and one from Cambridge Latin,” he told the Register Forum. “And my class were the last ones to receive class rings!”
Many of the alumni we met had gone to school during turbulent times in the United States. Being a Cambridge teen in the context of the civil rights movement, Red Scare, and the Vietnam War meant encounters with both activism and resistance.
Chebator described racial boundaries in Cambridge. “Mass Ave divided the white side of town from where the Black students lived. Even when we were walking home from school, I had a friend that would walk on the white side.” During his junior year, Chebator attended the 1963 March on Washington.
Paul Gibson ’64 told us that, in some ways, the school did not experience strong division. “Black, white, it didn’t matter — we were all poor,” he said. Gibson went on to become class president and attend Harvard University. Still, Roland Gibson ’55 remembered experiencing racism in Cambridge, such as being refused service in a barber shop due to his race.
Students and administrators described the school as a hotspot for activists in the 60s and 70s. “The football team would have to bar the unlocked doors against the SDS [Students for a Democratic Society],” Ed Sarasin, former headmaster of Rindge Tech, told the Register Forum. “I’d watch police dogs go into Cambridge Latin to stop fights.”
Some aspects of the Rindge Tech high school experience are remarkably familiar. Like CRLS students today, Rindge Tech students divided their allegiances between two pizza shops, now long closed, on either side of the school. In the 1950s English teachers still taught The Lord of the Flies to 9th graders, and football was played at Russell Field in North Cambridge.
Many Rindge Tech alumni still live in the Boston area, but others described having to move away. “I love being from Cambridge. Cambridge was my town. But I couldn’t afford to live in Cambridge anymore,” Ken Hugh‘’72 told the Register Forum.
Many alumni still get together regularly. “My buddies and I meet every 6 weeks for snacks,” Walter Bartlett ’67 told the Register Forum. “We just sit and reminisce. It’s remarkable that we still love each other as friends.”
This article also appears in our print 2024 November edition.
