Not your typical breakfast club

Though this breakfast club isn’t made up of five teenagers trying to survive a Saturday detention as in the 1985 John Hughes movie, this group of Lawrence High School alumni meets for breakfast on the second Tuesday of every month at the Val Brook Diner in Valley Stream to recall the good old days.

“We talk about current events and reminisce about skipping school,” Lawrence High School class of 1948 alum John Riordan said. “One time we went to Strand Theatre in Far Rockaway and a teacher followed us there and brought us back to school.”

Riordan, a Rockville Centre resident, said between 12 and 20 Lawrence High alumni meet every month. “We have some people who go to Florida for the winter and then come back in the spring and we have some diehards who go every time; I’m one of them,” he said. “But we’re not getting too many young people and it’s a shame.”

One of the founding members, Joe Josephson of Merrick, graduated from Lawrence High School in 1940. “We just started having breakfast together and then barbeques at my home in the summer,” he said. “It’s nostalgic.”

Both Josephson and Riordan enlisted in the Army after high school, however, Josephson was medically discharged following a severe asthma attack. He then went to work in the shipping department of Bulova Watch Co. in Valley Stream. Riordan was a police officer at the 4th Precinct in Hewlett before joining the community relations department at Nassau County Police Department headquarters in Mineola.

Millie Magnusson, a Woodmere resident, has lived in the same house since 1948, six years after she graduated from Lawrence High School. “The Five Towns was a big time community made up of all kinds of people who got along beautifully,” she said. “Central Avenue was like Fifth Avenue in New York; I bought all my clothes there.”

After graduation, Magnusson went to work for a trust company in Manhattan before becoming the district clerk for the Lawrence Board of Education from 1969 to 1988.

She began having breakfast with the group 10 years ago after hearing about it through a friend. “It started out with just men because they were all into sports and would talk about baseball, football, basketball and golf,” Magnusson said. “But little by little more people heard about it and came.”

Riordan, Josephson and Magnusson hope that more members join. “It’s very cheerful and happy to be with people you’ve known for so many years,” Magnusson said. “Even though we’re not in the Five Towns, we’re still close enough for people to come join us for breakfast. I hope it will continue because we really enjoy each other’s company.”

To become involved, Riordan said all Lawrence High School alum are encouraged to meet at the diner, 160 East Merrick Road in Valley Stream, every second Tuesday of the month, with or without yearbooks, photos and high school mementos.