The decorators met at the Biltmore around 10:00AM on Saturday, equipped with streamers, balloons, string, scissors, masking tape, and some decorations from the previous reunions—The large gold letters spelling out Class of 1969 that have graces our reunions since the 35th and the banner that the Pallotti alumnae had made for the 40th.
María Villanueva Scott had the banner modified to say 45th instead of 40th, cutting off the advertisements on the top and sides. Her husband, Alex, had attached the top edge of the banner to a narrow stick so that it would hang flat.
Our first setback was that the Biltmore wouldn’t allow us to use masking tape to attach decorations to the walls–when they removed tape used by a previous party, it pulled paint off the walls, leaving them with a $300 repair bill! We were only allowed to attach decorations from the wood at the very top of the walls, using thumb tacks. To help us out of our predicament, the Biltmore provided a ladder and thumb tacks.
The next setback was that, even with the ladder, the only one tall enough to reach the wood was Carli Scott’s husband, Tom, and it was a stretch for him to reach it. Tom attached string to each end of the stick holding the reunion banner so that he could hang the banner from thumb tacks in the wood.
The third setback was that, once Tom managed to reach the wood, he found that it was too hard to push the tacks in! No one had thought a hammer would be necessary and there was no obvious substitute. Tom eventually found a small whole in the wood and pushed one tack into it, but had no success with the second tack. After trying unsuccessfully to pound in in with a sandal—no one was wearing shoes with firm soles—he was experimented with a pair of scissors. He was able to make a small hole in the wood with the tip, then used the blade to help put the tack in.
After a bit of adjustment to get it level and at the right height, the banner was hung.
Since we couldn’t attach the streamers to the walls, we decided to hang them from the banner. Ruby Vásquez Gillet suggested that we could transform the banner into a backdrop for a “photo booth.” From either side of the top of the banner, we taped streamers that covered the end of the supporting stick and hung down to the floor. We then created a curtain of streamers across the entire width of the banner, hanging from its bottom edge to the floor.
In the meantime, the balloon brigade had been inflating balloons and tying them with string. With no way to attach the string to the walls, they decided to put the balloons into the large plants, somewhat like Christmas tree decorations. After filling all the plants with balloons, they tied the few remaining balloons to the supports for the two speakers on either side of the dance area.
We had no way to attach the Class of 69 gold letters to the walls or anything else, but we put 6 and 9 on the table just inside the door where attendees could pick up their name tags, standing them up, leaning against each other and against the wall.
When all was done, we decided that we’d managed to make the hall festive and pretty in spite of the limitations.