Last night Vicky and I attended my 30th high school reunion. Ygnacio Valley High, Concord, California, class of '74. 30 years! Oh my gosh. Can it be?
The first thing I noticed was how old people looked. I was in a room full of 48-50 year olds! Oh yeah, I'm that old too. This aging thing sucks.
I also noticed that I didn't know anybody. My graduationg class was more than 950 students in a school of over 3600 kids. My circle of friends mostly came from jazz band and seminary. I had missed a couple of years (most of freshman, all of sophomore, and a month or so of junior) when my family was transfered to Bakersfield. Of the 60 or so students that showed up, I was semi-friends with one of them. He had played cello in the orchestra. We visited for a while and that was nice. I knew a few others (such as the student body president) by name and face but we never conversed at school
We all got a name badge with our high school picture on it. So as we wandered around we would look at each others tags. The names and pictures were not large enough, so it was hard to see them without getting up close. My eyes don't work that well. Dang. Did I say this aging thing sucks?
People were clumped mostly into small groups engaged in conversations. A few times I just walked up to anybody and said “well I don't remember hardly anybody so I figured I'd say hi to somebody”. I met a few nice people that way. But in the end we just ate, talked a little, and then left.
I remember my 10 year reunion -- it was different. A lot more people were there, and I found myself at the table of my former seminary classmates. It was a lot of fun. But none of them showed up this time. Oh well.
There were a couple of interesting conversations at our table. We are the same age as our parents were when we were students at school. We talked about things we got away with at school, like cutting class, and how different things are now for our kids. Some mentioned about how their parents never found out about some of the things they did. Hmmm. How much are our kids getting away with that we don't know about?
All in all it was just ok. It was nice to get out of the Phoenix valley for a couple of days. Today we are going to spend some time in San Fransisco before the plane leaves to take us back home. I've always liked this area, and I enjoy S.F. There are too many people living here for me to want to live here too. Too crowded. But a fun place to visit.