I get the school district emails. A week or two ago one of the items in it was a save the date for the 25th reunion.
It was the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend. At 25 years out of HS you’re in your early 40s which means most likely married (if not divorced/remarried). Whomever chose that date is thinking small, as in, “I grew up here, I still live here, my spouse is from here, that’ll be a great weekend because everyone will be here” Nope, no one travels that weekend to be with their spouses family, or to their parents house who have now retired to ___ or to be with their family, but at a sibling that has moved out of the area. For a five or 10 year reunion it might work, but for 25, that’s a piss-poor date to choose.
I ranked the freeway route first because it has an analog in my real life: There are two possible routes from my town to the airport. The shortest route is mostly urban/suburban surface streets with lots of traffic lights and lots of stop and go driving. The freeway route is physically longer and somewhat circuitous. But as long as you don’t go during rush hour it’s free flowing with faster speeds, and takes no more time. Every local would tell you to take the freeway route.
My reunion answer was “Oh hell no.” My 50th was a couple of years ago and all of 5 miles from home. Wasn’t tempted in the least. If I didn’t like the people then, I highly doubt I would like them now.
I’ve been to a couple of high school reunions. I’d go if I weren’t across the country, and if they gave me more than a few weeks’ notice. My college has reunions every few years, and I go to all of them, plus sometimes for the class year before me (say, if there will be a memorial for a friend). College was great, high school was good, and I have a lot of active friendships in my college group.
For 50 year reunion - I voted “Maybe out of morbid curiosity”.
Granted, I have nearly 17 years to wait for my 50th High school reunion, +4 for college, but even so it’s a very strong emphasis on maybe.
Most of my friends in High school were a year older, so it would mean going to their 50th, so likely moot. But there’s still the morbid curiosity of seeing who’s bald, who is overworked with multiple kids/grandkids, etc.
College would be the better temptation, and I’ve kept up with at least 3 of them (one being easy, because it’s my wife!) And of the two remaining, we kept in good touch until they moved across the country, and the last we’ve had two in-person visits when they were coming through town. Everyone else? Morbid curiosity, other than the one friend who had a psychotic break after their sophomore year over the summer, and after a relapse right after they started Junior year… they never returned to school. I always worried about Stu, but while I visited him briefly during the the worst of the episode right after he returned, but afterwards his parents never reached out to any of us. None of the answers are likely good.
[ Stu was a great guy, but the paranoid psychosis to the point of violence was terrifying, and while it could be controlled with medication (which he was taking prior to coming back to school) he was a absent minded hippy-esque sort of guy, and on his own would forget, and then the paranoia meant of COURSE he wouldn’t take his pills ]
Sometimes a traffic app will route me off the freeway onto a side street for s short distance. I stay on the freeway.
I went to a ten year reunion- about 20 of us in a park. Mind you, fairly large High School, pretty good sized class. Those huge live band and rent a hall High School reunions i see in movies and TV- are they just made up?
I tend to go to my 10 year reunions. I’m usually pleasantly surprised by the number of people who remember me fondly. Except at my 20th – My sister was a very popular teacher at the local elementary school, so everyone remembered me as “Ms Magill’s brother.”
I am scheduled to attend a 50th HS Reunion next month (September 2025). I have a couple friends coming in from other states which is the only reason I am attending.
I have never attended any HS or college reunions in the past and this will likely be my one and only participation.
I have no idea which Sunday is Easter next year. However, I am often unaware on the actual day of Easter each year. It’s one of those days that just doesn’t show up on my radar. Sometimes I’ll see a bunch of people parading around some palm branches and I’ll think “next week must be Easter.” Otherwise, nothing.
I know what day is Easter next year because it happens to be the first day of spring break at my son’s school, and I just happened to be planning our vacation for that week.
I’ve been to all my college reunions (every 5 years) and a few of my high school reunions. I’ve generally had fun. I still have lots of friends from college (and have made new “reunion friends” ) and a few friends from high school that it’s fun to catch up with.
I agree that Thanksgiving weekend is an odd choice.
I went to my 10th reunion back in the 80s. It was a three-day affair. The second night was a fancy dinner/dance at the Peabody Hotel with a live band. I don’t know how many people were there - our class had around 500. My friends and I took acid and had a great time. So it used to be a thing. I don’t know about now.
I’m still friends with a dozen or so of my classmates. A few have been to one or the other of the subsequent reunions but I’m not interested.
I would love to go to my HS reunion & catch up with people I was friendly with; problem is we haven’t had the past two. Traditionally, it was the class president’s duty to organize but we all said when that person was elected that we knew they wouldn’t do the work; we were right.
I don’t do FB, which means I don’t see anyone’s updates, but it also means I’m not the person to organize it as I’m not nearly connected enough to find people & get the word out.
I don’t know who organized my high school reunions, but they do it exclusively on Facebook, which means i don’t hear about them unless someone mentions it to me, usually at the last minute.
My class has very sensibly decided that if no one gets around to organizing a 40th, it’s just dandy to do a 43rd, instead.
Many years ago, we were on I90 in Gary, and I saw the sign that said US12. Good old 12, so I got off the freeway and onto 12. It took us through city streets, then up Lakeshore and on to Waukegan where we cut across to Gurnee and got back on the freeway. It took a couple hours, which was about the same as it would have taken on the freeways (based on previous experience), but when we were stopped, we knew why we were stopped. And there were no tolls. Of course, it was also a challenge finding a place to deal with bladder pressure.
