Reunion

I'm going to.. actually, I just returned from the first event of ,,my last High School Reunion.

Fifty years. FIFTY!

I remember when my mother was planning to attend her 50 year High School Reunion. I thought: "Why? They're all so old, they probably don't ever remember anybody!"

That was several decades ago. Today, I have a somewhat different perspective.

I'm old.

Damn! That's a hard one to get past.

I can do this.  I was a little excited,  a little dubious.  And  a lot apprehensive.  I was, in high-school, not a popular boy.  Got good grades, scored high in my Scholastic Achievement Tests.  (They now call them "SAT" and I suspect they're a lot different.)   But I've always been lazy, and I sure was in high school.

Reunions are a SOCIAL event, and SATs don't do a good job of measuring that.  I was so skinny that my friends use to call me "Zipper".  As in:  "Hey, Zipper!  You're standing sideways to the sun; turn around so I can see you!"  I was never popular with the girls, even though I liked them just fine.

The last time I went to a high school reunion, many of my contemporaries were fat;  I wasn't.  Not revenge, but it was sweet when the ex-cheerleaders came up to ask me how many miles I ran a day.  Yes, I did run regularly, but my body type was protecting me from criticism, not my work-out regimine.

I weighed 170# then; now I weigh over 200#.  Life happens, as well as retirement, age, change in life style.  Some of us, it just takes longer to catch up with us.

Not that I'm worried any more about what people think about me.  You've been reading this blog before?  You may have noticed that I Have An Opinion.  It's a double-bladed sword, Opinion.  When my own matters more than others, does it become "An Issue"?

I don't think so, I'm no longer concerned if my opinion doesn't agree with that of others; but I've had a lot of decades to evaluate myself based on experience ... a factor which was sorely lacking in high school.

Today, I'm not really worried about economic level, body fat index, or other "image" issues.

What I'm worried about is my classmates.

One of whom (JO)  has been doing a terrific job keeping track of her classmates.  She sent group notices (it's something of an "E-List") when something significant happens to a classmate, or their family.  This has been going on for about the past five years, so we kind of are still getting caught up.  She posted a list of classmates who have died .. I was appalled at the decimation of our class!  In the past six months, there have been another half dozen fatalities, mostly due to debilitating disease (heart disease, cancer .. you know the litany of "old people" diseases.  Mostly, the friends and acquaintances who are dying now are the victims of chronic illness.    Very few die due to accident, or violence.  Are we becoming more sedentary, more cautious in our lifestyle?  Or are we just becoming more mundane?

I guess the thing which pulls me back to my high-school classmates is, more than anything, curiosity.  We have been exchanging emails via the E-List for a couple of years.  One of the more creative suggestions was that we contribute a thumb-nail digest of our life . That happened a couple of years ago, and when I posted my bio I was surprised at the way my life had turned.

War, devastating illnesses lost of family and close friends and other loved ones.  Marriage, divorce, jobs won and lost, you name it.  My high school class is a window into the American Experience.

People who wouldn't talk to me in school, are now so mature that our status differences (then) have nothing to do  with today.  Old girl friends, people who were leaders and are now "just people" .. time is the great leveler.   Everybody knew who we were "then"; today, we have no idea, except .. we are survivors.

I have to say, I have a lot more respect for the people we are NOW, than I did when we were "THEN".   Myself included.  The things which were important, seem to be "not so much" now.

Physical Attraction (we're all a lot older, perhaps wiser?)  Who we associate with.  What we do?  

 Our priorities are different.  We're no longer concerned so much about status, as we are about family.  Actually, even being able to participate in this artificial group activity confers an amount of status.   To my great surprise, everyone who met everyone (even though we usually had to consult our name tags to be sure who w e are/were) were delighted to see each other again!  Funny ... the characteristics we demonstrated in high school were a reasonable indicator of who we are today.  Maybe we can talk about "The Formative Years" with a little more authority now, but we are far to polite to say so.

No, that's not quite it.  Subject to future reconsideration, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that --- we were freakin' KIDS then!  Now we still feel like kids, but everyone i met tonite had obviously Learned Something.


Yesterday and Today: two different things!
For the first few reunions, it was all about what college we attended.  Then it was .. what job we were doing, and how much money we earned.  Then we quit bragging about jobs, and money, and the cars we drove.  We started bragging about our kids.  That's when I quit going to reunions, because my children were more important to me than my friends ... my "so-called" friends.

No, I'm understating it.  Simple longevity counts more than we would ever have expected, "THEN".

Interestingly, of the people I use to hang out with in high-school, very few of them have 'publicly' suggested that they will be attending the reunion.  But the information I have is based on this select set of people who have made their email address known, so maybe it's meaningless data.

That's why I was looking forward to the reunion.  I want to see who shows up.  My college roomie .. yeah, I thought he'd be there.  He wasn't tonite  One of my other roomies didn't attend the same school.  One of them was married to a classmate .. he's dead now.

Yesterday I went out to the garage and pulled the box with my high-school and college yearbooks.  I don't have them all, but I wanted to put the names together with the faces.  Curiously, I didn't open a single yearbook;  I just packed them into a cardboard box from a liquor store and set it aside to take with me.  In case anyone is interested in matching faces "THEN" with faces now.   When I packed my car this morning, I didn't put that box in there.  It's not really about "THEN".

It's probably not important to me who the were "THEN".  I'm more interested in who they are "NOW".  It's not that I didn't like them, in high school.  It's that .. I suspect we are not the same people.  Photos are only interesting in retrospect;  they don't even begin to meter "potential".

There are a scant half-dozen people I'm really anxious to meet again (for the first time).  The rest are total strangers who shared only a small number of important experiences.  I met most of them tonite, and I was absolutely delighted to find them warm and welcoming. Some of them even actually knew me!  Well, not until they read the name tag.  In these events, it's a disadvantage to be TALL:  Short People can read the names without being obvious about it;  they don't have to stoop to identify.

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Oh, well.    This is pretty much a trip down memory lane, so far.  I'm looking forward to going back.  (Even though according to Thomas Wolfe we "can never go home" .. because home isn't there, any more.)

TOMORROW, the first event is a mile walk down main street, followed by a general meeting at "The Rainbow" (apparently a cafe ... I haven't spent an hour in this town for the past 20 years and it has changed considerably!).  Most of the people at the First-Night Get-Together ( I certainly didn't get my $15 worth of wine .. but it wasn't what I was there for) generally agreed, in whispered private conversations, that "Eight AM and I've got to walk for a mile down Main Street?  No way!  I'll see you for breakfast."

Damn!  

They're not only older , but they're smarter too!