Wow, a lot has happened since my last post. I must admit, about a month ago I was worried that the reunion may not be a success. We hadn't received many positive responses from classmates about coming. That has all changed. In the last couple of weeks, classmates have been returning the responses in great numbers.
To date, 81 people, including spouses and a few teachers have responded that they are coming. When the reunion committee started the whole process, my goal was to double the number of people attending. That goal has been realized. Success! What a great feeling! About 60 classmates (one third of the available class), several spouses, and 5 teachers will be attending.
The weekend will begin with an informal Friday night party at a local bar. The reunion will be on Saturday night with food, fun, photos, music, and camaraderie! The continuation will be a brunch on Sunday with anyone not hung over from the first 2 nights.
Looking forward to some fun times in the old town!
Saturday, July 11, 2015
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
The Teachers
My reunion committee questioned whether or not we would like to invite some of our old high school teachers to the reunion. Should we? Will they come? Are any even still alive? The locals pondered whom they might have seen in and around the area.
The football coaches were still around and lived in town. There is that world history teacher that we had in the 9th grade...one person said she sees him at the gym sometimes. What about the American history teacher that everyone liked? Ohhhh...and the physics teacher that no one liked, who married a girl 2 years ahead of us in high school...he still lives in the area...
Well, we did it...invited a bunch of teachers and it will be an interesting night! The 9th grade world history teacher was well-liked despite the fact that he stared at girls' legs...a fact we all remembered. I sat in the front of his class and he would talk to me before class, ask me embarrassing questions, like did I go to the dance last Friday? He always picked on me to know the answer to questions about the previous lesson...and I always knew the answer.
The old physics teacher was the subject of a previous post and I would really like to tell him that I went into science despite hating his class and that I even had to teach physics concepts to 8th and 9th graders. And...that I work in the pharma industry!
Will they recognize me? I have no idea. I doubt if I look much like the young girl they might remember, if they remember me at all. But, I think we will have some fun getting to know them all over again!
The football coaches were still around and lived in town. There is that world history teacher that we had in the 9th grade...one person said she sees him at the gym sometimes. What about the American history teacher that everyone liked? Ohhhh...and the physics teacher that no one liked, who married a girl 2 years ahead of us in high school...he still lives in the area...
Well, we did it...invited a bunch of teachers and it will be an interesting night! The 9th grade world history teacher was well-liked despite the fact that he stared at girls' legs...a fact we all remembered. I sat in the front of his class and he would talk to me before class, ask me embarrassing questions, like did I go to the dance last Friday? He always picked on me to know the answer to questions about the previous lesson...and I always knew the answer.
The old physics teacher was the subject of a previous post and I would really like to tell him that I went into science despite hating his class and that I even had to teach physics concepts to 8th and 9th graders. And...that I work in the pharma industry!
Will they recognize me? I have no idea. I doubt if I look much like the young girl they might remember, if they remember me at all. But, I think we will have some fun getting to know them all over again!
Saturday, March 21, 2015
Speaking of gym class, how do you like these highly attractive gym suits that we wore back in the late 1960's? We had royal blue ones in junior high and maroon ones in high school. One piece with an attached belt around the waist that cinched you in for a defined waist. Of course, the short shorts had bloomers attached underneath so that no one could look up your shorts legs. They were made of non-stretch cotton, so they were pretty uncomfortable. We even wore these for girls' basketball...white ones...with numbered red pinnies over the uniform. Keds sneakers and white socks completed the look!
Monday, March 9, 2015
Coach and Ma and the Square Dance Lessons
What did you do in sophomore year gym class? Exercises? Basketball? Running?
Well, you haven't lived until you have learned to square dance in gym class. Oh my! Talk about embarrassment. In 1967, with excruciating pain and humiliation, the sophomore class learned to allemande left and do-si-do. I wonder if it was as painful for the gym teachers as it was for the students?
Ma, the girls' gym teacher, and Coach, the guys' gym teacher, were the co-teachers in this strange new journey. Ma was about 6 feet tall and like a drill sergeant; Coach was the football guy, nice, but awkward trying to teach us to dance.
First things first: We walked into the gym to find that the curtain to separate the boys from the girls was pulled back. We were told to line up, girls on one side of the room, guys on the other. Then we walked toward each other until we each had a partner. No one was quite sure who one would end up with until you matched up in the middle of the room. Ugh! You were stuck with that person for 3 weeks until the unit was done.
My guy could at least follow directions and we successfully learned the intricacies of the dances. Others were not so talented and failed miserably. Did we like it? Hell, no. Mercifully, the unit ended quickly and we went back to badminton and volleyball and our segregated lives behind the curtain..
Well, you haven't lived until you have learned to square dance in gym class. Oh my! Talk about embarrassment. In 1967, with excruciating pain and humiliation, the sophomore class learned to allemande left and do-si-do. I wonder if it was as painful for the gym teachers as it was for the students?
Ma, the girls' gym teacher, and Coach, the guys' gym teacher, were the co-teachers in this strange new journey. Ma was about 6 feet tall and like a drill sergeant; Coach was the football guy, nice, but awkward trying to teach us to dance.
First things first: We walked into the gym to find that the curtain to separate the boys from the girls was pulled back. We were told to line up, girls on one side of the room, guys on the other. Then we walked toward each other until we each had a partner. No one was quite sure who one would end up with until you matched up in the middle of the room. Ugh! You were stuck with that person for 3 weeks until the unit was done.
My guy could at least follow directions and we successfully learned the intricacies of the dances. Others were not so talented and failed miserably. Did we like it? Hell, no. Mercifully, the unit ended quickly and we went back to badminton and volleyball and our segregated lives behind the curtain..
You just never know...
Wow! There are just 4 months until my 45th high school reunion. Our reunion committee has done a great job of finding classmates, getting organized, and planning. One of the best things that we had decided to do was to create a scholarship fund with which to honor the class of 2015. When we started, we had fairly low expectations for how much we thought we could accumulate. However, almost $10,000 later, we are amazed at the generosity of our classmates. We have collected a real nest egg and we have decided what we will do with it. We have also survived an onslaught of suggestions from late-comers to the fold who have suggested that we aggressively manage our money and make much, much more. Those suggesting the aggressive approach, of course, had no intention of helping us manage it. Thus we decided to give it to the high school to manage in their own tax exempt accounts, assuring the donors that they could take a tax deduction each year that they donate. We decided that it was a WIN-WIN situation...kids get money and we get tax deductions and get to feel good.
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Free at Last!
By the time I entered high school, I finally no longer was the family babysitter. My mom was pregnant with my youngest brother, did not feel well most days, and was forced to quit her job. I could stay after school for activities as my mom was home all day.
It was a wonderful feeling that I could finally do sports after school, join the school newspaper, hang out. I started trying out for the girls' basketball team...but I missed the final try-out because I didn't hear the announcement for it at the end of school, so I missed being on the team. I was very frustrated because it was something that I had wanted for a long time. I played volleyball instead. There was no team but there were round-robin games after school.
Then, in the spring...I decided to try out for cheerleading. I practiced my jumps for months before the tryouts. The varsity cheerleaders conducted the tryouts. They didn't know me well and I think some of them were surprised that I was a decent jumper. I wasn't one of the popular girls who were normally chosen for cheerleader and I wasn't sure that I really had a chance. By the time the audition came around, I gave it my all and waited til the following Monday for the results. I was chosen to be an alternate! That meant that if a regular was absent/sick/ineligible due to grades, I would get to cheer in her place. And it did happen...I was able to cheer often enough to make it really fun traveling to football and basketball games on the bus.
The bus rides were great! I feel sorry for the bus driver though...we were loud and had so many bus songs...some rude and bawdy. Like the one about granny...swinging on the outhouse door, without her nighty, waiting for the garbage man...he comes at 7...sometimes 11...all the way to heaven on the outhouse door!
It was a wonderful feeling that I could finally do sports after school, join the school newspaper, hang out. I started trying out for the girls' basketball team...but I missed the final try-out because I didn't hear the announcement for it at the end of school, so I missed being on the team. I was very frustrated because it was something that I had wanted for a long time. I played volleyball instead. There was no team but there were round-robin games after school.
Then, in the spring...I decided to try out for cheerleading. I practiced my jumps for months before the tryouts. The varsity cheerleaders conducted the tryouts. They didn't know me well and I think some of them were surprised that I was a decent jumper. I wasn't one of the popular girls who were normally chosen for cheerleader and I wasn't sure that I really had a chance. By the time the audition came around, I gave it my all and waited til the following Monday for the results. I was chosen to be an alternate! That meant that if a regular was absent/sick/ineligible due to grades, I would get to cheer in her place. And it did happen...I was able to cheer often enough to make it really fun traveling to football and basketball games on the bus.
The bus rides were great! I feel sorry for the bus driver though...we were loud and had so many bus songs...some rude and bawdy. Like the one about granny...swinging on the outhouse door, without her nighty, waiting for the garbage man...he comes at 7...sometimes 11...all the way to heaven on the outhouse door!
Sunday, August 24, 2014
The Fib, Lie, Untruth, Whatever you want to call it....
One by one, my class reunion committee members have been finding classmates' information. The goal is to find as many classmates as possible to be able to invite them to the next big class reunion. One of the members said, "Oh, Brian lives in my neighborhood. I will see if I can get his email address so that we can send him reunion updates quickly." By the next committee meeting, she had obtained the email address to go along with his home address. Great! We were happy to add him to the list.
The next email updates were sent out to the class and Brian was included with the list. That night I received an email back from Brian. To my surprise, he wrote that I was mistaken that he was in my class. He said he had graduated in the class before mine. An untruth. A fib. An outright lie. Could I please take his name off of the list of contacts?
Wow! I was stunned. Surprised. Shocked. We had some classmates, who, when contacted, asked to not be contacted any further concerning reunions. They had their reasons, I am sure. We didn't ask why. But the difference was: they didn't lie about it.
We have been talking it over as to why Brian did that. Some classmates thought he was a jerk for doing what he did. Some thought it was a cheap way out. A stupid excuse for not getting together with old friends. My thought was that perhaps Brian's high school years and memories were not as happy as his classmates. I didn't know him well, so I really had no idea. Perhaps his memories were so painful that he couldn't bear to see classmates again. Whatever his reasons, I wrote back and said that we would, of course, honor his request and remove his contact information from the list.
However, Brian and I had a moment in time that I could never forget. Graduation night. I will always have the memory of graduation night at Whitney's farm, way out in one of the pastures, of smooching with Brian while the rest of the class was drinking all around us. He had great hair, like a surfer-boy, long, but not too long, dirty blond. We were an incongruous couple. I am not even sure how or why we ended up together. He was in the drama club and I was into sports. He was friends with a friend of mine, with whom we had both come to the "party". We spent a bit of time that night in each other's company, thoroughly enjoying each other without any future thoughts. I was in heaven for a few hours. We never saw each other again but the memories are still lovely.
The next email updates were sent out to the class and Brian was included with the list. That night I received an email back from Brian. To my surprise, he wrote that I was mistaken that he was in my class. He said he had graduated in the class before mine. An untruth. A fib. An outright lie. Could I please take his name off of the list of contacts?
Wow! I was stunned. Surprised. Shocked. We had some classmates, who, when contacted, asked to not be contacted any further concerning reunions. They had their reasons, I am sure. We didn't ask why. But the difference was: they didn't lie about it.
We have been talking it over as to why Brian did that. Some classmates thought he was a jerk for doing what he did. Some thought it was a cheap way out. A stupid excuse for not getting together with old friends. My thought was that perhaps Brian's high school years and memories were not as happy as his classmates. I didn't know him well, so I really had no idea. Perhaps his memories were so painful that he couldn't bear to see classmates again. Whatever his reasons, I wrote back and said that we would, of course, honor his request and remove his contact information from the list.
However, Brian and I had a moment in time that I could never forget. Graduation night. I will always have the memory of graduation night at Whitney's farm, way out in one of the pastures, of smooching with Brian while the rest of the class was drinking all around us. He had great hair, like a surfer-boy, long, but not too long, dirty blond. We were an incongruous couple. I am not even sure how or why we ended up together. He was in the drama club and I was into sports. He was friends with a friend of mine, with whom we had both come to the "party". We spent a bit of time that night in each other's company, thoroughly enjoying each other without any future thoughts. I was in heaven for a few hours. We never saw each other again but the memories are still lovely.
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