My high school class just had our 40th high school reunion this past weekend. We had our first one 30 years ago, a less attended one twenty years ago, and had not had one since. Your high school classmates are people who you grew up with you, sometimes attended the same church , and who most likely knew your parents. All of you lived in or near a town or city where most people even at age of late fifties still have links. I suppose they are like long lost family in a way.
That late 50's age thing makes your thinking different. I watched my father attend his last class reunion, which happened to be his 70th and the thinking there was different too. Most people who make it to a 70th class reunion are just glad to be alive, everything else in life has faded in importance. At our 10th reunion classmates wanted to know where you were living and what job you had at the time, and have some fun. Our 40th class reunion found most people past what lifestyle someone has created, and more towards just thrilled to see you. A most common question is " have you retired", usually followed with " be glad when I can". Seems careers and jobs, which meant so much 30 years ago have now become a means to an end. Maybe that was what they were all along?
I had a head start on this reunion since I was part of the steering committee that helped put it together . Early on we had all kinds of ideas about what to do, how to structure the event, and how to create fun there. All the planning for activities to do fades fairly quickly in importance when you just find the most enjoyable thing is to catch on one another's life. You tend to want to know if one another's parents are alive, catch up about what is going on in the home town, and most importantly how is your health. At 58 years old if you got reasonably good health you know you have won the real lottery in life. Anyone who is worried about how they look or some regrettable action they have done that might come out find out quickly those things mean nothing anymore. I expect they meant little all along we just did not know it .
Many of us did some of the reunion stuff, attended the high school homecoming game as a group , toured the hometown, had a nice BBQ dinner the second night of the reunion and had a DJ who played some of the "old songs" . Of all the things we did frankly two of the most enjoyable was when we took over a local restaurant in town after the annual Homecoming game and just got to talk and laugh and Saturday night when everyone just enjoyed each other's company.
I attended my home church in town Sunday morning and got to see people who I have known at the church since being a youngster. Being " home" I had lunch at the one of the few restaurants in town that was there when I was in high school, Arnold's Family Restaurant. Arnold's is old enough to be legend now and I took in the place's famous "Big A burger".
I find myself emotionally attached this town and it's citizens and to these 50 plus people at my reunion. They know my past, they know many of the mistakes I made when young, and they care for me anyway. Sorta like family as I noted earlier. You also find out that you now want to keep up with these people with whom you share a common past. As you narrow life down to what you really like to do and learn to not waste precious time on things that do not matter. You have proved the things you needed proving and lost the friends you needed losing.
Like my father's 70th reunion at my 40th you can now see that other common destiny down the road. Nothing like knowing that life ends to focus your mind on the important. The important is relationships and in this case people with whom you have known for over half a century. You also understand that whatever you have gained from life blessings that those blessings have little value unless you can share them.
In the end I think back to when I was part of my high school basketball team. Win or lose just being part of the group gave you a sense of belonging, a sense of sharing the same destiny, the sense of enjoying each other as much as possible. My hometown high school in 1971 could easily be mistaken for Hickory High in the movie Hoosiers. Same small basketball gym and same small number of students in school. So in the end I want to say to my classmates, and many others I grew up with there in Richlands, what coach Norman Dale said to his team at the end of that movie, "I love you guys".
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