We have often talked about the Typhoon spirit. Remember the assemblies we used to have? We had lots of them
during football and basketball season. Didn’t we have one for every home football game? We had assemblies
to mark special occasions, too. At Thanksgiving time it seems to me I remember gathering the entire student body
in the auditorium and we sang the traditional Thanksgiving songs. The entire student body assembled
in the auditorium with the seniors seated in the front rows.

Perhaps the assembly that most endures in my mind was the first one held in the new auditorium that replaced the one
destroyed by fire. Miss Sherman led the student body in singing “Bless This House.” I’ll never forget the words.
I still hear the voices rising in unison to sing:

Bless this house, O Lord. Make it safe by night and day;
Bless these walls so firm and stout, Keeping want and trouble out;
Bless the roof and chimneys tall, Let thy peace lie over all;
Bless this door that it may prove ever open to joy and love.
Bless these windows shining bright, letting in God’s heavenly light;
Bless the hearth a blazing there, with smoke ascending like a prayer;
Bless the folk who dwell within, keep them pure and free from sin;
Bless us all that we may be Fit O Lord to dwell with thee;
Bless us all that one day we May dwell O Lord with thee.

In years after I left NNHS and worked in other schools, I did not see assemblies like the ones we had at NNHS.
We had lots of them, yet they did not interfere with the academic program, although I do remember watching
the hands on the clock in Mrs. Graves’ English class, hoping the clock would get to time for the assembly
before she got around to giving the promised quiz on the homework that I did not finish the night before!

Remember the pep rallies, yelling at the top of our lungs to support our teams? Remember the chorus and
the band performing for the student body? Remember the skits and plays our classmates performed
at assemblies that marked holidays? Remember the Mouse Assembly and the Senior Assembly?  
I wonder if those assemblies had something to do with building the Spirit that was NNHS? Did they
somehow enter into the chemistry that created the phenomenon we know as the NNHS Typhoon Spirit?

- Aretie Gallins Patterson ('59) of Northern VA - 12/01/05
WOWZERONI - what a thought!  Thanks, Aretie!