Foo Fighters: Learn to Fly
Belle and Sebastian: Another Sunny Day
I was raised Catholic and my husband is Jewish so we try to make an effort to make sure that we expose our son to both traditions. Dustin and his dad were in China this year over Hanukkah and rather than missing lighting the candles and saying the prayer (I know Hebrew like he knows the rosary), we used Skype to bridge the planet and light the candles together.
I can tell from this picture than Dustin is looking up trying to remember all of the Hebrew properly.
There are times when I take technology for granted and then there are times when I’m awestruck at how far we’ve come in such a short period of time. It really wasn’t that long ago that I was playing with the card punch machines at my dad’s work. Crazy.
This is Part Three of a series about my high school reunion. Read Part One | Read Part Two
Many hoped to bring those friendships of the past into the future. “I decided to attend because I had recently reconnected with some of my former classmates and developed a curiosity of what it might be like to see and spend time with them again,” Sandra said.
Robyn and I with another friend in 1987. Totally. Awesome
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Cliff C. looked back at those years and had a very different response. “I slept with everyone that I wanted to then,” the Washington D.C. photographer said. “What’s the point of a rehash now?” Jokes about ex-girlfriends aside, my former classmates also wanted to update their personal biographies, which is part of the stress of attending a reunion. Beckford said she felt awkward at first because she never married. I was worried how being a stay-at-home mom and college undergrad would stack up to my friends and former rivals who became lawyers and engineers...
But mostly I worried about the size of my butt...
I would like to meet the person Zen enough not to worry about their appearance before a high school reunion, because most of us noticed the changes. It happens. We’re almost 40. But whatever anxieties we walked in with seemed to have disappeared by the time the buffet line formed as the adult versions of the class of 1987 began to relax and reminisce. Unlike the ten-year reunion where the high school cliques kept us divided into social sectors, this time around most of us ventured out and talked to people outside of those tight social circles.
John, Robyn, Cliff K (i.e. different Cliff from above)., Me, Janelle
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“At 10 yrs out most people are still trying to impress each other with how they’ve changed,” Ross said. The need to impress people wasn’t particularly important ten years later. “Most of the attitudes were like ‘I’m here and this is who I am like it or not’,” she said..
The reunion was a weekend filled with old memories mixing with new for the hundred of us who attended. Every person I spoke to said they would be back for the 25-year and while some of the non-attendees said they had no interest in ever joining in, most would consider a future reunion. Beckford understands why. “It’s just too interesting! It’s an experiment you’re a part of - a living time capsule.” .Thankfully, we get to leave the legwarmers in the ground.
Wang Chung: Everybody Have Fun Tonight
This is Part Two of a Three Part Series. Click to see Part 1 | Click to see Part 3
Jason H. won an Emmy© this year for his work as a segment producer at WFOR, the CBS affiliate in Miami. That’s a pretty impressive accomplishment – I suggested he bring the statue as his date – but an army of cheerleaders couldn’t have dragged him to the reunion.
“I don’t really feel a connection to most of the people I went to high school with anymore,” he said. Jason and I are still really good friends, but has no interest in going back to the way things were. “I don’t like the idea of falling back into that hierarchy we all shared in high school,” he said.
“The Group”, as we used to call ourselves, at John and Janelle’s wedding in 1988
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Robyn B., another friend who made the transition from high school buddy to life long friend, sees it differently. A reunion isn’t just a time to talk about bon fires and Budweiser, it’s a time “to talk to people who knew me before I was fully formed,” she said. “People I know now only know me as an adult compared to people who knew me back then,” she said.
Stan, Me, Jason and Robyn in 2006
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We are able to reconnect with our teenaged selves by seeing the 38-year-old through the eyes of people who knew us when we were younger, or as John M. put it, “I’m getting older but I really don’t feel that old.” John works as a Nuclear Power Operator in Miami, which is mind boggling because my enduring image of him from 20 years ago involves doing donuts on an abandoned golf range while blaring “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right to Party”. No matter how philosophical we may get about them, reunions are also about those bon fires and Budweisers..
Previously: I Want to Go Back ||| Next up: Everybody Have Fun Tonight
Simple Minds: Alive and Kicking
Few things can inspire heart palpitations in the average adult as easily as a festive envelope bearing the words, “high school reunion”. Every decade or so, we receive these invitations and either open them with anxious excitement or toss them in the shredder with the hope that their destruction will push the old war wounds back into oblivion.
The Graduating Class of Miami Southridge Senior High Class of 1987
If only it were that easy.
A high school reunion doesn’t just dredge up memories for those who attend, it affects everyone who looks at the calendar and realizes the number of years since graduation is divisible by five. I poured over the list of the graduates of the Miami Southridge Senior High Class of 1987 last spring knowing most of them were about to get to have a walk down memory lane whether they wanted it or not.
High school may only make up a small fraction of our lives, but those are watershed years few of us can forget. “My high school experience was full of very big highs and very big lows,” said Sandra R., a special needs teacher living outside of Orlando. Sandra graduated with me and 650 other alumni and she sums up the feelings many of us had about the three years we spent together. “I can recall many great times spent with good friends, but also some very lonely times where I felt like nothing could go right for me and everything seemed to be very depressing.”
Me, Lisa K, Heather K., Janelle M. and AJ D. in 2007
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Robyn B., Janelle M, on far left. Heather K. and me on far right in early 1988
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Even those who manage to get out of high school unscathed, the years that follow aren’t always ones they want to brag about. It seems to be a universal truth that everyone feels anxious as reunion time approaches, so I couldn’t help wondering what motivates some people to bridge continents to attend while some who live only 15 minutes away don’t even reply to the invitation.
Next Up: Alive and Kicking
Eddie Money: I Wanna Go Back
