May 2026
Top Fermentation by Tom Schlafly
I graduated from high school in 1966. Like most alert readers (ARs) from St. Louis who graduated that year I had grown up in a world that seemed to be all about our class. We lived on Route 66, which John Steinbeck had called “The Mother Road.” We listened to musicians like Nat King Cole, Chuck Berry, The Rolling Stones and countless others sing about getting their kicks on the highway that ran through our town.
There was a TV series titled Route 66 that was popular while we were in high school. One of the episodes was filmed in St. Louis and featured local landmarks such as Gaslight Square and Rock Hill Quarry. It marked the first appearance on the show of the new Corvette Stingray, which had been made in St. Louis at the Chevrolet plant at Union & Natural Bridge.
Two iconic structures in Downtown St. Louis were completed during our senior year in high school. The Gateway Arch was topped off on October 28, 1965, my 17th birthday. The following spring Busch Memorial Stadium opened on May 12, 1966. Two months later on July 12th it hosted the MLB All-Star Game, mostly remembered for the humidity and 105 degree temperature. (Casey Stengel famously commented, “It sure holds the heat well.”) Six weeks later on August 21st it hosted a concert by the Beatles during their final U.S. tour.
Sixty years later those of us who graduated in 1966 are celebrating historic reunions. My graduating class consisted of 31 boys (down from the 34 total who had been in the class at one time or another). In the six decades that have elapsed since our graduation some milestones stand out on our Route ’66.
1971 When we celebrated our fifth reunion we had already lost two members of our class, both of whom had gone to Stanford and both of whom died within a few months of each other during their senior year.
1976 Our class celebrated its tenth reunion and joined the rest of America in celebrating our nation’s bicentennial. Gerald R. Ford was the president and his name, image & likeness (NIL) were not anywhere near as ubiquitous as those of our incumbent president are during the semiquincentennial. Not even close.
1991 We celebrated our 25th reunion in June of 1991, six months before The Schlafly Tap Room opened for business in December. Ever since then we’ve been able to hold reunions at The Tap Room.
2001 We celebrated our 35th reunion in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. At The Schlafly Tap Room we made the difficult decision to proceed with our Hop In The City celebration on September 15th, which turned out to be the right call.
2006 By the time we celebrated our 40th reunion, we had lost a third classmate, who had died in St. Louis. The current Busch Stadium opened and the Cardinals beat the Tigers in the World Series to top off their inaugural season in the new ballpark. At the end of the year I published a memoir on the first 15 years of Schlafly Beer titled A New Religion in Mecca.
2011 When we celebrated our 45th reunion we had lost two more classmates: one who lived in St. Louis and one in Rapid City, South Dakota. The Cardinals won game seven of The World Series against the Rangers on October 28th, the 46th anniversary of the completion of The Gateway Arch. It was also my 63rd birthday, which I celebrated with a Schlafly Pale Ale at Busch Stadium.
2016 We celebrated our 50th reunion the same year Stan Kroenke (Cole Camp High School class of 1965) culminated years of lying to St. Louis fans and moved The Rams to Los Angeles.2026 As we prepare to celebrate our 60th reunion, we join the rest of America in celebrating the centennial of Route 66. We have now lost six more classmates: five who died in St. Louis, and one who died in Signal Mountain, Tennessee. We are currently expecting a majority of our 23 living classmates to come to our reunion…from four different U.S. time zones as well as Mexico.
Still getting our kicks after 60 years.
Our class graduated on 6/6/66 and is one of 66 classes that have graduated from our high school to date.
ARs who are versed in biblical scholarship will be familiar with Revelation 13:18, in which 666 is identified as “the mark of the beast.” Further exegesis discloses that these sixes represent imperfection, evil and being doomed to failure. If three sixes are bad, one can only imagine what the slew of sixes associated with our class might mean. With a prophecy like this looming over us for the past 60 years it’s amazing we turned out as well as we did.
Tom Schlafly
