I recently attended my 50th high school reunion -- an "interesting" experience.
This was my first reunion with my classmates over the years. I've received notices for the interim gatherings but it never seemed worth the expense and time to attend any of them. However, the 50th seemed significant somehow -- a milestone worth acknowledging. It also seemed to fit in with my more reflective and nostalgic tendencies associated with retirement.
One thing I learned right away is that the internet has made reunions much easier to promote and to manage. Websites like ClassReport.org, Classmates.com, MyEvent.com allow organizers to display information about the event and to provide biographical and contact information about alumni. (I'm sure that Facebook will soon find a way to supplant these independent venues and make it even easier to do this. For the potential downside, see my cautionary blog about Facebook.) Very slick.
I graduated from South High in Denver. We were the South High Rebels, a designation clearly linked to the Confederacy and the Civil War. On the reunion website was our logo, the profile of a confederate soldier. We were obviously less culturally sensitive in those days (imagine being one of the few Black students at our school during a rally to cheer on our Johnny Reb football team). Just for kicks I went to the current website for South High and found that the "Rebels" term is still used, though the soldier has been replaced by a more neutral block letter "S." The current website also extolls the school's diversity (not a defining characteristic while I was there) and its goal of developing in students "...a sense of civic responsibility to contribute to their global community." Sounds great. I just hope they don't still wave little confederate flags at the rallies like we did.
Since I really didn't keep in touch with very many of my classmates after graduating, I was curious to read the biographical information posted on the website. I learned three things from this. First, I couldn't remember most of the people in my class (this might be due in part to the sheer numbers involved -- there were 700 in my graduating class). Second, of the ones I could remember a disturbingly large proportion of them were dead. Third, the people I recalled most fondly were often those with whom I had also attended junior high, where we were "tracked" -- the same group of kids went from class to class for three years and we got to know each other very well.
At the event itself we were given id tags with our yearbook photo and name. This was very helpful, because most people didn't look much like they did in high school. Even when I could place either the face or the name, I was often at a loss to remember the context in which I knew the person. It was an exhausting cognitive effort to bridge a gap of 50+ years when there was no connective thread between then and now, nothing in the middle. By the end of it I came to the painful realization that as emotionally charged as those days may have been at the time, they have little relevance for my life today. Revisiting memories of those times was actually a little depressing, because it didn't reveal any significant truths about who I am today (as I thought it might) and instead presented a puzzling and disjointed picture of someone I hardly recognized.
I realize that for many people high school memories are very positive and that reunions are a joyful and heartwarming way of maintaining meaningful relationships. My high school experience was not so great. It was a period in my life of great uncertainty, social isolation, and near-calamitous life choices. Somehow I pulled out of it in time, and I now think high school was something I survived, not something I enjoyed. The reunion did what I guess it should have -- it reminded me that now is the most important time of my life, not the past.
This was my first reunion with my classmates over the years. I've received notices for the interim gatherings but it never seemed worth the expense and time to attend any of them. However, the 50th seemed significant somehow -- a milestone worth acknowledging. It also seemed to fit in with my more reflective and nostalgic tendencies associated with retirement.
One thing I learned right away is that the internet has made reunions much easier to promote and to manage. Websites like ClassReport.org, Classmates.com, MyEvent.com allow organizers to display information about the event and to provide biographical and contact information about alumni. (I'm sure that Facebook will soon find a way to supplant these independent venues and make it even easier to do this. For the potential downside, see my cautionary blog about Facebook.) Very slick.
I graduated from South High in Denver. We were the South High Rebels, a designation clearly linked to the Confederacy and the Civil War. On the reunion website was our logo, the profile of a confederate soldier. We were obviously less culturally sensitive in those days (imagine being one of the few Black students at our school during a rally to cheer on our Johnny Reb football team). Just for kicks I went to the current website for South High and found that the "Rebels" term is still used, though the soldier has been replaced by a more neutral block letter "S." The current website also extolls the school's diversity (not a defining characteristic while I was there) and its goal of developing in students "...a sense of civic responsibility to contribute to their global community." Sounds great. I just hope they don't still wave little confederate flags at the rallies like we did.
Since I really didn't keep in touch with very many of my classmates after graduating, I was curious to read the biographical information posted on the website. I learned three things from this. First, I couldn't remember most of the people in my class (this might be due in part to the sheer numbers involved -- there were 700 in my graduating class). Second, of the ones I could remember a disturbingly large proportion of them were dead. Third, the people I recalled most fondly were often those with whom I had also attended junior high, where we were "tracked" -- the same group of kids went from class to class for three years and we got to know each other very well.
At the event itself we were given id tags with our yearbook photo and name. This was very helpful, because most people didn't look much like they did in high school. Even when I could place either the face or the name, I was often at a loss to remember the context in which I knew the person. It was an exhausting cognitive effort to bridge a gap of 50+ years when there was no connective thread between then and now, nothing in the middle. By the end of it I came to the painful realization that as emotionally charged as those days may have been at the time, they have little relevance for my life today. Revisiting memories of those times was actually a little depressing, because it didn't reveal any significant truths about who I am today (as I thought it might) and instead presented a puzzling and disjointed picture of someone I hardly recognized.
I realize that for many people high school memories are very positive and that reunions are a joyful and heartwarming way of maintaining meaningful relationships. My high school experience was not so great. It was a period in my life of great uncertainty, social isolation, and near-calamitous life choices. Somehow I pulled out of it in time, and I now think high school was something I survived, not something I enjoyed. The reunion did what I guess it should have -- it reminded me that now is the most important time of my life, not the past.
36 comments:
Nostalgia is an interesting concept. My daughter says I have none, but that's an outside opinion brought on by lack of attachment to most old things. I have attended some reunions over the years, maybe 3. The 45th was the most recent and it was fun as an event and only stirred up a few negative memories. Probably the main difference is class size. We were 36 I think, so I knew everyone whether I wanted to or not. While I haven't stayed in touch with any of them it was interesting to see what became of them. I learned I liked most my life choices and wondered why some of my classmates made some of the choices they did. The people I liked then are still the ones I found interesting, though I saw more redeeming qualities in some of those I ignored in high school. I recently spent time with an old friend who told me of his many years of alcoholism (I didn't have contact in that period) and his is the most complete story I have of what it means to be mired in misery and then to reclaim a real life. To say it was sobering is not just a pun. I'll probably go to the 50th which will probably be the 51st as Carole's class and mine do this together. Thanks for the blog!
I have had a very different experience with my high school reunion(s). I went to a very different kind of high school, however. Ben Eielson High School was on an Air Force Base at Mile 26 on the Richardson Highway, south of Fairbanks, Alaska. Students were military dependents and the children of anyone who lived in the district. We had a graduating class of 52 and we knew each other pretty well, but one characteristic of transient lives is the ability (or necessity) to make friends quickly. We were stuck with each other, there were no other people our age anywhere near, we were literally an enclosed community. There were some cliques, but everyone went to the basketball games and the wrestling matches (only indoor sports in Alaska…). Our experiences were shared, whether you wanted that or not. We all had the same teachers, lived in the same houses, and on Friday and Saturday nights went to the Teen Club or the movie or maybe a party in someone’s basement. The closeness was, of course, artificial, in another environment you would never have been friends with the people whose yearbook you signed “forever friends”. On the other hand, our little world was quite idyllic, it was integrated to a degree unknown in the “lower 48” at that time. Certainly my parents’ values played a role, but living on a military base for five years prior to going to university meant that I was willing, and quite prepared to be the first white woman to room with the first black woman to attend Valparaiso University in 1965.
We also shared the bond of awareness of the dangers our families (fathers and brothers) faced in the military. From our classroom windows we could see the smoke billowing into the air from a runway plane crash; everyone worried about whose father was the pilot, or on board. We were cognizant of the Vietnam war years before it became a public concern; most of our fathers and most of our classmates served in that conflict. This is a long introduction, but it could help explain why, when the internet made a reunion possible in 1999 it started a biennial get-together.
The first gathering was a huge effort, everyone who had ever attended the school was invited. As it happened, 12 of the 52 attended. We realized that despite the passage of time without any, or much, contact, we were all pretty similar in our concerns and our outlook on life. We had all developed in different occupations, but had views that were far more global and diverse than other friends and neighbors, we had a lot in common. We also remembered our high school years fondly. It was actually a very innocent time, a very protected atmosphere, one that would be hard to replicate today. We had such a good time we decided to meet two years later with just our class. A concerted effort was made to contact all 52 graduates and many who were in the next class also. We now have an email list of 48 and good communication on Facebook. Since then every other year we have met somewhere different, so in 2001 it was San Diego, 2002 Dallas, 2005 Reno, 2007 Austin, 2009 Oxford, and 2011 San Francisco. I think 2013 will be Chicago. But the amazing thing is that we are planning on going to Alaska for our 50th. The number of attendees has varied and spouses have been welcomed into the group, overall we have had a lot of fun and look forward to these three-day reunions. The bottom line is we all enjoy traveling, and in each place we have had outings to see and do things in the area as well as chill with food and drink.
I'm envious of those of you have reported positive HS and reunion experiences. I agree with the suggestion that size might have something to do with it -- my class of 700 made it difficult to make close friends and didn't foster much group identification. My junior high experience, which I pointed out led to richer relationships, was much more positive, likely because my section was just 20-30 kids and we were with each other all day.
I am reading this post at the right time. My class of 1973 wil soon be planning for our 40th class reunion. We were a Roman Catholic school of all girls. For the 10th reunion, most of the women brought partners. After that, the number of men dwindled. For the 25th, my husband was the only man in attendance. No men were at the 30th. My high school years were dysfunctional to say the least. I enjoyed the more recent reunions because everyone seemed more like real people than they did in high school. At the last reunion, I talked at length with the only black student in our class. We discussed so many topics that no one would ever even think of bringing up in 1973. The biggest learning for me, overall, was that I was not the only student who felt alone back then, and that my isolation had much more to do with my circumstances than with myself or any malicious intentions on anyone else's part.
I NEVER associated southern confederate BS with Denver!! Learned something new there! Thanks for the blog--fun to read.
What in the hell is southern confederate BS? Slavery was in Penn,NY and DC.
When I hear stories like yours, I feel so grateful for my own experience, and sad for you for yours....I cannot imagine going to such a large school-my high school was 500 plus a few- my own graduating class 135 students as I recall. The kids we marched with under the daisy covered arches at our high school graduation were the same kids we shared graham crackers and milk with during snack time in kindergarten. Many classmates still reside locally and those who don't put out the effort to come to the reunions...we have them every five years(:
Anyway, for me, great memories of a wonderful time in my life. I feel very fortunate to have lived in a small town...
As all are aware, each has their own view of high school life; good, pleasant, unimportant, boring, exciting, painful, etc., and each can write novels defending their personal views and experiences. For me and to put it simply, I agree with Richard that reunions are reminders that the most important time of one's life is in the present and not the past.
Thanks for the insight. My 50th is coming up and I have been mulling over going or not. The organizers have called and applied some pressure to show up. Most of my friends from that period went to other schools and after reviewing our yearbook I found no one I had any sort of relationship with other than being in the same place at the same time. Kind of like meeting with everyone who was with you in a Walmart on a certain day. I picture people walking around with the yearbook looking at name tags to see how a person aged. Well, I suppose that could be fun.
Thanks again.
I'm not interested in being seen by people who see me like I was in the past....50 years ago, and have no respect for the "much growth" that took place between high school graduation and today. Think that it's quite childish and unproductive, I don't want to put myself in that situation.
I looked at my high school yearbook from 1965 and really didn't recognize any faces or names. The exceptions were persons I went to elementary school with and a few that were in my classes. None of the people I hung out in high school was in the year book as they had dropped out of school, I was the lone exception I looked down the list of former classmates that were signed up, I recognized very few names. I decided that the whole affair would be too socially awkward, so I passed.
Recently I attended my 50th reunion. Like Richard, my HS class was composed of 600-700 people. I did not have a happy home life. I was no one's 'princess'. This led to a lack of self-confidence or self-esteem which must have been projected to other students in my class. I was not a cheer leader or home coming queen. I was fortunate enough to have close friends and we have remained in touch.
This was the first reunion I had attended since the twentieth. At the twentieth I noticed that even though I had overcome much of my awkwardness in High School, and had succeeded in life, I was not acknowledged by the class 'elite' who seemed to be stuck in 1965 - I was still treated like white trash.
So fast forward to a few months ago at the 50th. I guess the 'organizers' just didn't know what to do with us so they placed us in the 'back 40'along with a collection of people of other classes, like 'left overs'. The cheer leaders, home coming queens and jocks sat together at the prime tables, still maintaining their little cliques. We did not interact. We were still invisible - even after 50 years!
This gave me the opportunity to take a good look at my life as it was, how far I have come and how thankful I am for how I live today. I have taken care of myself. My friend told me I was the best looking woman there. Never-the-less, a former jock who is now a sloppy, fat, bald man with a flowing beard said he couldn't remember me when I tried to make conversation with him. A former cheer leader who is now barely moving and unrecognizable would not look at me or return a smile. I guess sometimes old habits never die.
But guess what? I will be at next years reunion - as a reminder to them that people change, that exclusion gets you nowhere, that compared to them, I am now both jock and queen.
This is a great comment! For some people this might be a good reason to go, after all -- to track the life trajectories of classmates and realize that happiness and achievement may be correlated in complex ways, not simple ones, to our experiences in HS.
Thanks for posting.
RS
I also had a huge graduating class of 800 students and assumed when I attended my 40th reunion that almost no one would remember me. To my utter astonishment, as I walked into the hall and up to the reception desk, several people called out my name and exclaimed they thought I hadn't changed a bit! Since I had very few close friends in school, I asked them how they recognized me after all these years. I was quite moved to hear that many people thought I was very friendly and dressed fashionably in school. I won the prize that night for having the most marriages (3) and can't wait to go to my 50th reunion after losing 30 lbs at Weight Watchers and reaching my high school weight and also now having been married 4 times!
Vindication is sweet! I'm glad that several of you who didn't have such a great time in HS have had positive experiences at your reunions. Maybe there ARE good reasons to go ..... I guess when I think about it, my own 50th was partly a matter of realizing my life over the intervening years had been pretty good relative to a number of others in my class.....
Thanks for the comments, everyone!
RS
I'm in the mulling stage right now. Sorta want to go; sorta don't really want to go. And sorta don't want to spend the $1,000 to $1,500 it's going to cost me, between airfare, hotel, rental car, event tickets, etc. On the plus side, I can't help but think it's got to be one of the more interesting experiences we can possibly have, i.e., seeing people we knew in kindergarten but fifty years later. I figure they'll all look like they're wearing stage make-up to appear older for a class play. I, too, was in a class of 700-ish. But if I do decide to go, it will mainly be to see just a handful of people I still care about - maybe five or six of them - and share that experience together. I read your blog post because I was hoping your comments would talk me out of going, but the responses you've received have talked me back into it! Would still love to hear more stories from folks who've gone. Thanks!
I was called today from an organizer looking for me. It's the 50 year reunion. I've never been too far from the high school I graduated from, but they've never 'found' me before. I never went looking for a reunion, either. My high school years were filled with a lack of confidence, not knowing where I was going. My home life was full of anger, arguing and alcohol between my parents. The support I needed wasn't there. I do remember a few friends from the earlier years. The biggest challenge was not getting 'busted' for smoking in the girls head. As each year passed I just wanted to be done with it and out of my folks household. With Viet Nam on the horizon for my boyfriend, the 'free love' movement, the Beatles and the Stones, and the introduction of 'grass' I don't think it's hard to understand the path my life was taking. Those became very confusing and tumultuous years that continued past graduation. Even though they helped to shape who I am today, the past needs to stay in the past.
I'm not that person anymore.
GOD bless each of you. HE is the way, the truth, and the life.
Oh Gosh! I guess I'm one of those organizers calling people- and hopefully only putting pressure on for the purest of reasons. I was not the popular kid by a long shot- and seemed to be associated with looking like Twiggy- which may have been fabulous now, but was disastrous in the sixties, but, nonetheless went to a planning meeting for our tenth reunion. It turned out to be an eye opener. It was like group therapy with the entire group feeling like they were not popular and basically having awful memories with the good. I couldn't believe that these people I thought of as the popular group were as insecure as I was. I loved it! You know, misery in your teen years is just part of growing into an adult. I know high school was just a mixed bag, and I regret not being more sensitive to others, however I never thought a tone would think my approval mattered. I know I'm a better person, a more caring mom and citizen from my Twiggy moments. Ha! My girls think it's hysterical I would be embarrassed by being too thin! I hope we get a really good attendance for our fiftieth, as I want to greet and congratulate all the classmates I grew up with, for just coming together. I admire especially the classmates that were gay, so hard to be different back then, and so stupid of us not to get it. There are always plenty of people that made me laugh, that I'd forgotten about, Just heard about a classmate that recently had a heart transplant. Never sure in life what may happen in the future, but I love being in the present, and that means embracing the past, and looking forward to the future, and maybe finding a few old friendships a long the way.
I feel much like you do. I survived high school. Wasn't a good athlete, student, nor did I live in a fashionable or right neighborhood. While I did attend my 50 year class reunion, I am glad that it is over. You are right: the only time that really counts in our lives is "now." That's all that we really have. And what we are in the present moment, seldom resembles what we were in the past and if it does, then we haven't grown very much.
My high school class of 1967 is having its 50th reunion this fall.The classmates who are attending are the ones who went to the previous reunions. They belonged to different cliques in high school and at each reunion they relive the roles they had back then. The Jocks, the musical production clique, the rich kids clique, the gang's clique (which took a group photo for the yearbook showing the rest of us the finger), the sports cliques and the clique of popular kids who were prom queen and king, the prettiest girl, the most handsome guy, and so on. On the Class of 1967 Facebook group, which announces who is going, I posted two messages: one asked them to reflect upon the expectations of life they had at graduation with the actual life they have now 50 years later. The other one asked what they remember about life in 1967 and what was important to them then. The questions were viewed by 189 members and only 2 shared their responses. I assume the low number of responses was due to their reluctance to reveal the truth about themselves. Just like in high school. I'm expecting one of the gang members to give me the finger.
FriedaAudrey --
Thanks for your excellent comment. It is too bad more of your classmates didn't share their answers to your questions -- I suspect they would be very interesting and somewhat mixed in how closely they see their expectations as aligning with their actual lives. For some (perhaps many) of your classmates who read but didn't answer your questions it might be that they didn't *know* the truth about themselves rather than being reluctant to reveal it. Hopefully you may have stimulated them to start that self-examination.......
I HAD A VERY SMALL TOWN HIGH SCHOOL CLASS...made up of cliques, bullies, jocks and all the other immature folks that if you weren't part of the mentioned you were an outcast shunned, or worse. For those that were popular, well liked and 'stars' ...where are they now? As for The 50th reunion ...for those one time 'stars' YES... DO GO it will look like a HIGH SCHOOL PLAY where the part called for TEEN CLASSMATES to be made up to look OLD...NOW THEY CAN'T TAKE OFF THE MAKE-UP! For those of us who were miserable
STAY AWAY! THESE PEOPLE WILL ONLY BRING BACK WHAT MADE YOU UNHAPPY. FIFTY YEARS IS A LONG TIME AGO BUT SOME OF THE BAD MEMORIES LAST FOREVER. Enjoy what you have now..THE PAST IS PAST.
Well, I'm going to my 50th HS reunion this month...
In HS,I was in the non-jock, immature physically and socially, and no real friends categories. I went to college far away, and never lived at home after I graduated. Since I left HS, I have had zero contact with any HS classmates.
Why am I going? Maybe to play golf at the posh golf club where I used to work as a caddy, busboy and toilet cleaner.
Or maybe schadenfreude, since I have done fairly well in life since I got my stuff together, in and after college. I am in good health, and reasonably well off financially. I suppose I expect many of my formally elite, insider classmates to be less healthy and well off. Nice, huh?
So off I go. I know I'll be thrown back into the awkward, stressed and needy state in which I existed in HS....please, somebody be my friend...No? Fine! I didn't want to be your friend anyway!
I can't wait to see how this turns out. With any sort of luck, I won't even need my lawyer.
Enjoyed reading the comments posted on September 5, 2017 at 4:03 AM. Please post a follow-up of how it turned out for you. Contemplating maybe attending my 50th (maybe not).
My 50th high school class reunion is going to be held in October in St. Louis. I'm not going. I didn't go to any of the previous ones either because I don't live in St. Louis anymore and also for the reasons you gave. You must have been reading my mind. The identity one had in high school is no predictor of the person they will turn out to be. And in a lot of cases, the nerds and unpopular kids end up doing better in life than their popular classmates. And everbody grows old and dies no matter who they were or what they did. They end up looking like their parents.
I am in touch with some former classmates on FB. I'd much rather keep in touch this way than spend $$ to go to the reunion events, which include going to a "dance" with a DJ spinning oldies records, going to a rubber chicken dinner the next night where the classmates who were in the popular cliques gather to relive glory days, and on the final day taking a nostalgic tour of the high school that is surprisingly still standing after all these decades (1930+) but no longer retains the academic status it once had.
Thanks for the opportunity to express my feelings without being labelled a cynic.
Wow, well-said Frieda (Audrey)! I suppose it could be argued that those of us whose HS experience was less than stellar and left us with unresolved anger and angst should go to the reunion and face down those negative experiences as an expression of mental health. While a nice-sounding bit of psuedo-psychology, I think it isn't necessary to rekindle negative experiences in order to move beyond them. Those who enjoyed HS and see it as a very positive time in their lives should certainly cherish the memories. For those of us who didn't, I think the most important thing is for us is to recognize that even negative experiences can have a positive effect on the trajectory of our lives, and to be able to assess honestly and realistically what our own personal HS experience means in terms of our current lives. This doesn't require eating rubber chicken.......
I'm in the middle of ticket sales for our 50th HS Reunion. We've had a fair response to our invite on our website. I'm enjoying the positive expectations of my classmates who have signed on to share profiles and pictures. We had a class of over 500 but less than 10% have purchased tickets. 15% have created a profile on the website. The event is three months away. I'm assured that there will be a flurry in the month of June by my co-chair. I alternate between worrying about too few guests and also about having too many. Make your organizers happy and just say thanks and "I wouldn't have missed it for the world" (for what ever your reason eg Gee I did so much better than the Prom Queen, lovely to see that our high school sweethearts are still together, I saw a girl I went to kindergarten with, my buddy from school likes to fish in the Delta too, we lost one of the twins)
I'm doing this for my friends from high school. 4 of us returned to our hometown and joined up with the 4 who stayed and the 3 who made second careers here. We meet monthly for breakfast. Along the way I've had cheerleading support from the organizers of the 20th 30th and 35th reunions and had three others, who I didn't know in high school, step up to be committee members. New friends are great.
Linda, I hope your reunion goes well. I get comments from many people who, like you, have very positive feelings about this. But just keep in mind that there are also quite a few who, like me, have a more sobering and far more negative reaction. High School is undoubtedly an intense formative experience, as the responses I've had to this blog have definitely verified.
In two months time I am flying across halfway the planet to attend my first high school reunion. It will be the 5oth and ever since I read about this event on Facebook I have been keen to attend. I asked myself, why? On balance, I discovered I had so many strong reasons to attend rather than not.I have been fortunate to keep in contact with several schoolmates ever since,in person and by email etc. To broaden that group by just one or two more I am comfortable with. On my time away, I am together with my sister and we will be visiting many other places from so long ago - reminisce I suppose and again meeting with other cousins. I suppose from the reunion I will hope to share with others: happiness, sadness, success and of course bare witness to life's disasters. In view of this, perhaps the reunion is about helping me understanding my past and my present.
Like many who have previously posted here, I have been also questioning myself if I should or should not attend my upcoming 50th high school class reunion. I am presently leaning toward not going for many of the reasons that others have posted here. As I look back as the district schools I attended got larger and larger in student size I felt more and more lost. Regarding most of those I graduated with 50 years ago I often thought about them that they didn't mean that much to me 50 years ago, and my lack of fondess for most of them didn't change in any way since then. Going through school for me overall as a I look back was not a pleasant experience. No doubt the most uinpleasant experience for me was when in junior high school when the phys. ed. teacher would decide who would be captains of the teams, and allow them to select the students in the class they wanted on their teams. When selecting it always came to myself and a fella named Nick who would be always selected last. Standing there in front of your peers like that was so humiliating. The fact is even though Nick and I were not friends back then, I have always felt a kind of kinship with him, and if I knew Nick was going to attend the high school reunion, I likewise I would attend to express how much I have thought about him over the years. Unfortunately, Nick has past away. Today, I am actually very physically active for my age, and enjoy, and see the benefits of being physically active, but it is not due to the phys. ed. classes offered in school, but despite it. Looking back, it's amazing despite all the years of time we all spent in school ask yourself this, how much of it turned out to be a waste of everyone's time, cost, and effort? There has to be a better way to prepare young people for the future challenges of their life's. The fact is as I take a look back upon my own life, the most important lessons I learned on my life's journey was not in a classroom, but outside of one.
It's to be the 50th celebration (missed two years because of covid) for the small Illinois school I graduated from in 1970. There were around 70 in my graduating class. I never felt like I made a big impact in our social scene and the class seemed fairly "cliquey." I went to a few of the reunions over the years and they were ok. It seemed some of the people went out of their way to try to impress. This year it turns out that my wife's reunion from a different school is the same night and I actually enjoyed those people more than my own class so I guess it's an easy decision. I figure with today's social media we could all be friends on Facebook if you were interested in what people are up to. Another thing that soured me on the reunion is that for our 40th I sent in all of the info for the book that was published and it never even was put in.I guess that's pretty petty but it smarted some.
I would rather eat dog poo then go to a 50 yr. high school reunion. When it occurs it's going to be a low turn out in my opinion. I had a huge graduating class of approx. 700 people. I was a pretty girl, dressed to the 10's and was very artistic. My classmates were hillbilly duds and I was bored out of my mind for the 3 years that I attended this school. So glad when it finally ended and I went on to brighter horizons. I am 67 years old and I still have maintained my figure, my great fashion sense and am enjoying my life with my wonderful family and have excelled in business. Say goodbye to the past and keep going forward.
My class was 700 plus. Most kids were ones I knew from first grade. It was a time families knew each other. It was a tumultuous time in our country and I couldn’t wait to go to a big university and become a number. While my parents were alive I knew what classmates were doing. I went home for funerals and would see some of them but was busy creating my life and saw some had never graduated from high school. same old gossip, telling racist jokes, and smoking dope. Not for me. When I was contacted about attending the 25th I said I was in the witness protection program. After the 25th I heard stories of dope smoking, one night stands and a couple ran off and got married ( divorced in a couple of months with the man attempting suicide) and mooning yes showing your butt from a car. There are classmates that live in my city who don’t contact me and now that the 50th is tolling around and was asked if I was going I realized I was at a stage in life where honesty is best for me. I told him no I had no interest as after 15 minutes of remember when? I would have nothing to say as my life is full. Yes I was popular and still have my figure and am considered successful by their standards. However successful to me is being happy for others and yourself no judgements no hate. The Beatles were right all you need is love.
Wow, very well said! I envy those who had a great experience in HS and who continue to find a meaningful connection to former classmates. But my life is so much different now than then that I just can't find that benefit myself......
My high school reunion came and went and I didn't attend. I actually had the opportunity to view pictures online of the reunion and saw that a mere 50 ppl attended from a class of 1100. I was shocked to see " how old they looked." I was frankly shocked. I look like a "kid" compared to what I saw. The planning of the event was not well done. A small hotel off of the hwy- quite bland with no music or much of anything. Looked more like a funeral IMO. So glad I didn't bother. Anyways I was curious.
These comments are so interesting. I was thinking of going to my upcoming 50th but probably won't. I didn't dislike high school. It was simply boring and a waste of time. People I had gone to school with since kindergarten joined cliques and if you weren't in their clique you no longer existed. I guess it was adolescent insecurity and fear that drove them into their little groups. I had been fairly close to all of he kids up until then but then found myself very alone.
I graduated from high school after 3 years and never regretted it. I have not kept up with anyone from high school. I really didn't have any friends as it turned out. Like someone said, we were forced to be in the same place for years but were basically strangers.
No one has made any effort to see each other for 50 years, which means they don't care about each other. So how totally false and artificial to pretend for a day or two that you are interested in each other. And how meaningless, bouncing from person to person you don't recognize and hardly remember exchanging 5 minute summaries of the last 50 years of your life. There have been too many things in my life to even begin to be able to summarize it.
I did go to one reunion, my 20th. Even then I hardly recognized anyone or even remembered their names. Life has been too full and intense to retain that information.
I know some will go to show off what a success they've been -- in their eyes. One called me recently who had been a jock. He now weighs 350 pounds and has had both knees replaced. He wanted to brag about how much money he gave his children for college and a condo he has in Florida. He actually asked me how much money I have.
That's what it's about to most of them. I never fit in to their value system. I didn't enjoy being around people like that 50 years ago. The 20th reunion was unpleasant as the cliques reunited and again I felt alone in a room of people. I really see no reason to go to the 50th. There is no one I want to see, and it will probably be dreadful.
Many people seemed to have enjoyed High School and relish these reunions. However, there are a number of us who did not and do not. Nicely thought out, imho, Anonymous.
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