AUBURN — They called it a “Gathering of Geezers,” but it was more like a melting pot of memories as a handful of classmates returned to their first elementary school 72 years later.

“How did we all get on these steps? Are these still the same steps?” laughed Lorraine Pickle Ray as she looked at the faded photo of Park Hill School classmates from 1938, adding with a smile that, “They wouldn’t let us smile. They made us say ‘prunes.'”

There were more than 60 young, eager faces crammed on the seven steps leading up to the two-room school that housed grades kindergarten through four back in the 1930s.

The Auburn woman was one of eight former classmates of the Old Farm Hill Road school — now an apartment building — that gathered Sunday on those same steps to re-create (well, update) their elementary school photo. Surrounded by loved ones and joined by other classmates who joined their ranks later that same year, the vibrant group marched their way down memory lane.

In town for their 60th high school class reunion, Edward Little Class of 1950, the group was brought together at the urging of Marni Geilear-Field of Auburn, who thought it would be fun to take the elementary school photo all over again.

“Well, I never went to Mrs. Curtis camp for perfect attendance,” quipped Nancy Capen Lindgren after learning how some classmates got a special treat seven decades ago for showing up everyday. “Well, my nose is really out of shape now.”

The group broke into laughter as Lindgren and another classmate, Georgette Gobeil Sampson, got the group going. They talked about old classmates and where they are today, old teachers and the tricks they used to play — and, of course, that kid on the playground who left part of his tongue on the frozen metal pole after a wintertime dare.

“I was very, very quiet. If the teacher would yell at me, I’d cry,” said Emma Capen Holt. “Now, my sister — she was ahead of me — she was a naughty girl.”

For the small group, it was a chance to remember days back in an Auburn where many youngsters didn’t learn English until they went to school. They talked about being held back — some as many as two years — because they had difficulty grasping the language.

They talked about the trek between school and home twice a day — in the morning, in the evening and at lunch. Like most in their generation, it was a time without school buses where the walk was as much as a mile each way.

They talked about the teachers who, while strict and stern, wanted nothing more than for them to learn and succeed in a nation just coming out of the Great Depression and on the edge of World War II.

They talked of kids from the neighborhood, kids from the state home for children and kids who couldn’t speak English coming together in two rooms, two grades per room with one teacher per class.

“So, between the kids on the state and the kids who couldn’t speak English and the neighborhood kids — there was no such thing as a special education teacher. So there you are, and there we were,” said Jean Hodgkins Mower.

The Anaheim, Calif., woman made the trip back east with her twin sister, Joan. The two weren’t in the original photo because they didn’t start school until later in the fall of 1938.

For more than an hour, the group laughed as every memory led to yet another story.

Without missing a beat, Lindgren jumped right in as Sampson went on to give another update on a missing classmate that one of the group asked about.

“You know, you should be a news reporter,” Lindgren said as smiles spread across the group. “She knows everything about everybody. And what she doesn’t know, she’ll just make up.”

The group broke into laughter. Soon the sun started falling behind the clouds and the group started saying their goodbyes, complete with promises to re-create the picture again in five more years.

“This is home. That’s why I’ll never leave here,” said Sampson as she looked over the group with a smile spread wide across her face.