High School Reunion

Last night, my husband went to his high school reunion. People in town who were in his graduating class have been trying to get him to attend for years, but this is the first year we actually did. I discovered that some of other people I have known in town for years were in his class, and that surprised me.

Most of his classmates have long since left town. I think he enjoyed the chit chat with people he had not seen in a long time, most of whom I had never known since I did not grow up here. There was a copy of an annual, or a yearbook, or whatever your particular school calls it, and we enjoyed looking through that. Some of the people in the book were easily recognizable at the event, others had changed significantly. Many folks came over and spoke to my husband, shook his hand, chatted for a moment, and moved on.

We enjoyed the dinner, but when the band started to play in a room much too small for music much too loud, we decided to leave. People had formed their own little groups by then, the others who sat at our table during dinner had left, and the dance had started. We are not dancers, so we made our exit with a few good-byes.

After we got home, I asked my husband about his recollections of some of the people we had talked to. Was this one a bully in school? Was that one a snob? This lady is still as beautiful today as she was in school, that gentleman is still handsome. He gave me a little bit of background on personalities and relationships of many years ago.

The evening set me to thinking about my own high school reunion. I've never been to one of them, don't even know if my class ever had one, for that matter. I moved far away from home and can't think of one person from my class that I keep in touch with. Only a couple of people from my graduating class probably even know I moved to Colorado, and I'd bet few of them care one way or another.

I was never popular in school. I was the lonely kid who was always picked last for team sports, the one everybody made fun of because I didn't own the "in" clothes and hang with the "in crowd". I spent most of my high school years buried in my school books and went to the library after classes so all the other kids would be gone by the time I was ready to walk home. I guess I was kind of a geek who never attended athletic activities, played in the school band from the time I was in first grade (I don't know if they even have those opportunities in grade school anymore), but never got very good at the instrument I played, which was the clarinet, made decent grades but never outstanding.

The short and long of it is that I don't miss my high school days. If there is ever a time in my life that I want to "go back to", that period of my life certainly isn't it! I have good memories of family events, but I never felt any real bond to my high school graduating class. So, if there were a reunion, I doubt I would go. There are a couple of people I'd enjoy to hear from again, find out what they have done with their life and where they are now. Other than that, I've never had much inclination to look up former high school classmates.

My nursing school class is a different story. We were a small class, and I would love to see many of them again. Many it is because we shared the bond of a future nursing career, we struggled and fought to keep our grades up to achieve a common goal.

I had the opportunity to meet up with two of my former nursing school classmates when I visited family in New York last year. It was such fun to see those girls! A nursing school reunion is being planned for 2012, which will be our 40th, and I definitely plan to be there.

Thanks for reading my blog!