Carr Central High School Class of 1953 graduate Ethel Lagrone Pickens points to a photograph from one of the memory books she has compiled for the class’s 50th reunion, May 1-4. (C. Todd Sherman The Vicksburg Post)

[03/31/03] The poodle skirts, bobby socks and saddle oxfords that mark their generation have been stored away, but the Carr Central High School Class of 1953 will try to air out the mothball smells and relive carefree teenage days.

Ethel Lagrone Pickens, who was known as the life and soul of the party in high school, and other alumni are planning a golden gala for their golden reunion. Her eyes twinkle and a broad smile crosses Pickens’ face when she describes a high school class bonded “by magic.”

“I believe so strongly that we are who we are today because of the love that’s been given to us,” she said.

“The reason we love each other so much is because we all knew each other so well, the good and the bad,” she said. “You can’t really love somebody unless you accept them as they are.”

She remembers traveling around the Delta to hear Vicksburg’s own Red Tops, eating at Miss Libby’s Drive In on Clay Street, listening to the jukebox and drinking sodas at Waring Drug Store in The Vicksburg Hotel and dancing at The Rainbow.

“We were one big happy generation,” Pickens said.

The reunion, May 1-4, will be filled with activities including a hot tamale and chili party, a day downtown, a memorial service for classmates who have died and a “Golden Prom,” the grand hoorah.

Prom attire will be up to the guests, but Pickens advises, “If it’s fun, do it; if it’s not fun, don’t.”

Before the fun, however, comes the work, and Pickens has created a job for herself with a project she has undertaken and will complete before the partying begins.

She’s making her class a yearbook, something they didn’t have 50 years ago. No one knows why, she said.

Instead, the class used the high school newspaper, The Tattler, distributed with Saturday editions of the Vicksburg Evening Post, as the record of its senior year.

“We didn’t realize that not only we would get old, but the Tattler would, too,” she said.

Her copy n now yellowed and tattered n has been the springboard for the book. With a home computer, a helper at Office Max and a yearbook from the class’s junior year, Pickens is almost finished. She calls her product “the Senior Years Book.”

“We’re in our senior years now,” she said. “Our yearbook spans about 60 years instead of just one.”

The book is a compilation of “then and now” pictures, a message from each classmate and for some, pictures of grandchildren.

Since the group gathered for its 20th reunion, classmates been getting together every five years and often have “mini-reunions.” A group of about 40 has taken cruises, visited Gulf Shores and Panama City and attended a classmate’s wedding.

“Someone will call and say, So-and-so is doing something’ and we’ll say Let’s tell everybody,'” said Pickens, who has three grown children with her husband of 47 years, jazz musician Jim Pickens.

Jim Pickens, who graduated the same year from Jackson Central in Jackson, said TV’s “Happy Days” reminds him of his wife’s class.

“They lived the happy days,” he said. “That’s the way they lived.”