30 Year Reunion

I attended my 30-year high school reunion on Saturday night, and as with all such events, it was a bit of a mind-out-of-body experience.

I was never in what you would call the "cool" crowd in high school. I can say without hesitation that I enjoyed my high school years, but they're not something I look back on with great longing or nostalgia. I was into sports, went to nearly all of the major athletic events, and had my fair share of friends. But it probably says something that in a class of over 500, there is just one person that I've stayed in close touch with since 1978. Part of the reason for that is that I got a job just as my junior year was beginning, and it was far enough away from my house that nearly every kid that worked there went to a different high school. That became my social circle, and the fact that I worked early on Saturday and Sunday mornings cut down on the prospects for weekend entertainment.

Which isn't to say that I didn't have a good time at the reunion. I had several great conversations with folks I hadn't seen in years, including some that I'd been in classes with as far back as second grade. It was nice to hear people say "you look exactly the same," which a surprising number of them did. I'm not sure it's true, but it was good to hear it nonetheless. It was fun to make mental notes of people, and it was interesting to see how many of them slipped effortlessly back into the caste system that I'm sure has existed at every high school since the dawn of time. And overall, I have to say that everyone looked pretty darn good - only a handful where I had to check the picture on the nametag to jog my memory.

And of course, it was cool to listen to the soundtrack of the evening, which consisted entirely of songs released during the four-year period that we graced the halls and classrooms of Del Campo High School. Don't let anyone tell you that the mid-seventies was a fallow period for music, because there was plenty of good stuff to go around.

All in all, I'm glad that I went, and just wish a few more people that I knew pretty well back then had been able to make it.