High school pals rekindle friendship
Sitting in the posh living room of a Woodbridge subdivision home, five friends gathered together to remember when life wasn't as comfortable.
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"I remember when it was a treat in like second or third grade if we were allowed to get some coal to put in the heater," Cheryl Williams said.
"All 12 grades used to be in one building," Barbara Wahl said.
Williams, Wahl and three of their former schoolmates - Linda Poston, Sandra Adkins and Becky Blanchard - graduated from Evans High School in 1964.
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The group drifted apart after graduation. Occasionally, one would run into another one at the grocery store, the cleaners or somewhere else around town. The happenstance meetings lead to a recent dinner party at Williams' house, where the women met as a group for the first time in nearly 40 years.
1964 Evans High School graduates calling themselves the Filthy Five - Barbara Wahl (from left), Linda Poston, Sandra Adkins, Cheryl Williams and Becky Blanchard - recently reunited for the first time in 40 years.
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"We all moved away, and then we all moved back," Williams said. "We would run into each other and talk about all of us getting together. Our 40th reunion is next year, and now seemed like the right time to do it. Now, we're talking about getting together again."
The women were an odd assortment in high school, developing a close friendship despite their varied interests.
Wahl and Blanchard were basketball stars; Williams was a cheerleader; Adkins was the homecoming queen and Poston was the academic - but it worked for them.
"In 1964, there were only 60 people in the graduating class from all over the county," Poston said. "Today, kids with all these different interests would probably have a different circle of friends, but back then we were all we had."
In high school, the clique called themselves the Filthy Five.
"Always remember our, not just good, but wonderful times," Blanchard wrote in 1964 in Williams' yearbook. "Remember the Masters and the Mazda and our sunburned noses ... Always remember the Filthy Five, and our good times, and our five F's - foolishness, flirtatiousness, facetiousness, fattiness, and flauntiness."
Forty years later, none of the woman said they could remember the origins of the Filthy Five moniker.
"I don't know how that name got started," Wahl said. "I hate that name. It sounds sleazy, and I don't think it was meant to be. We need to change it."
Former Evans students Linda Tinsley Poston (left) and Cheryl Robinson Williams (right) talk with English teacher Patti York in this 1964 yearbook photo.
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The older and wiser members of the Filthy Five made a decision, reinventing themselves as the Fantastic Five.
After a new name was decided on, it didn't take long for the 58-year-old grandmothers to steer the conversation to more nostalgic times.
"Anyone remember the Dixie Pig?" Williams said. "It was a drive-in fast food place."
Drive-in restaurants were the popular dating spots in the '60s, the women said.
"I remember going to Timmerman's Drive-In across from Daniel Village," Blanchard said. "I also remember Number One Drive-In and Kelly's Hamburgers."
The women also recalled their days of playing basketball in less-than-stellar facilities.
"Didn't we have games in like a barn or something?" Adkins asked. "I remember it being pretty small. People were sitting 10 inches away from court."
Blanchard added, "Yeah, I was afraid I was going to knock someone out if I went out of bounds."