Ever been to to high school reunion?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
81

There actually was no 10 year reunion for my class, because no one bothered to organize one. I’m told that traditionally it’s the class president’s responsibility to organize it – ours either wasn’t aware of this, or just didn’t do it. So someone else organized an “unofficial” 11 year reunion the following year. I got invited but didn’t attend; I live in California and went to high school in North Carolina, so I didn’t think it was worth flying across the country just for that. My friend that did attend described it as one or two friends he was interested in seeing, and a whole bunch of people he didn’t even remember.

I guess my 20th would have been a few years ago, but once again it seemed like no one actually organized one. Either that or I didn’t get invited.

82

I don’t think that people aren’t invited. You just have to take the time to find out about it.

My ten year was in 1992. The planners hired a company to find everyone and plan the event. There was some sort of semi-formal party with a band and dinner/drinks in a ballroom that you had to pay to attend on a Saturday night and some sort of free pot luck at a park on Sunday where you could bring the kids if you had them by then.

They did the same thing in 2002. I have a very rare last name so I was easy to find. In both cases they left a bunch of messages on my land line answering machine which I ignored. In 2002 I got an additional personal call from an acquaintance from back then who was one of the organizers. I called her back and politely told her that I had no interest in attending. She was super insulted and cut the call short when I tried to make a little small talk to catch up.

In 2012 someone made a Facebook group for our class. I assume that it’s all done via social media now. Someone added me to the group and I looked around a bit and then removed myself. It looked like there wasn’t a lot of interest but they were trying to organize something at a bar. I don’t know if it happened.

Time flies and next year would be the next one. I looked and the Facebook group still exists but it’s private.

Anyway, that’s a long way of saying that in the era of social media, no one is going to find you to invite you and you probably don’t need an invitation anyway. Google that shit it you actually care to go.

83

So you’re saying these were people who died…

84

Ha! That works, too. Or maybe the Sloth Committee.

85

i have skipped all reunions. I hated those people in high school, I don’t want to reunite. F that.

86

As said, situations differ. At my college it was the norm to stay in the same dorm for all four years, so you really got to know your dorm-mates well.

87

Interesting. If I’d had to keep my first dorm roommate…what happened when roomies didn’t get along in a major way? That was actually a big part of the reason I changed dorms. I moved to one that had lots of international students, which didn’t interest him.

At my college (20K enrollment, in case I didn’t mention it) most people were eager to move out of the dorms. I think they made a rule that freshmen had to stay in a dorm. They sold this to the parents as, “Finding time to cook meals is just one more adjustment we can avoid…imagine when they have papers due or exams. This way, they’ll have meals already prepared in the caf.” Also, security issues were highlighted (they’re on campus, no long walks home in the dark) but many students figured it was a cash flow thing for the university.

The other piece was that landlords had leases that really put you on the hook. If an apartment costs each of the 4 renters $X per month and one of the four drops out, the other three divvy up that $X payment (or find a new paying tenant acceptable to the landlord).

88

You could switch rooms, but generally you stayed in the same dorm. In fact there was an annual rite called the room pick where each student got to pick his/her room for the next year, in order of seniority. So every year I got a better room.

Our dorms were kind of like pseudo fraternities. They had officers, traditions, camaraderie. However, unlike frats, every student belonged to a dorm.

At the beginning of your freshman year, you got to spend time at each dorm, and then select the one you wanted to join.

89

That’s the way most apartment leases work - the rent for the apartment/house is whatever it is whether two people are sharing it or four. If four people are renting a four bedroom place, the rent doesn’t drop in half because two people move out. The only situations I know where the rent goes down if one person leaves are situations where the landlord rents the bedrooms individually - in which case, the landlord finds the replacement and the existing tenants don’t

90

Heh. I went to an urban commuter school with ~25,000 students and maybe 1,500 dorm units at the time (they’ve apparently added some more since then). Fraternities/sororities were virtually invisible as were the DII student athletics, school pride was an eye roll, average time to matriculation was well over 5 years (lots of older, working part-time students) and dorm inhabitants were regarded as harmless oddities :slight_smile:.

The concept of college reunions is so unfathomable to me that it never really crossed my mind to think that they might be a common thing. But I guess if I had gone to Stanford or some other “closed” university were most everybody lived on campus and four year graduation was still standard I’d have an entirely different view.

91

I’ve never attended any high school reunions, so I only know them from television and movies. Don’t the murders interfere with having a good time?

Seriously, I attended a small high school (graduating class was probably about 200-250 kids) and while I had friends and people I got along with, I really had no desire to reconnect once I got through my college years.

I’ve also never attended a reunion for my undergraduate degree. The graduation, which I didn’t bother to attend, was held in the stadium (overall registration was ~25,000 and my school was College of Arts and Sciences, which was huge).

I have been to multiple “reunions” of my graduate research group. I put reunion in quotes, because these events include everyone my thesis advisor advised over his 40 year career. So while I get to reconnect with people I worked with, or mentored, or who mentored me, I also meet a lot of new people I only know by name. But they are always a lot of fun.

92

Joining the Army meant I was out of touch with just about everyone I knew. Before social media it was like falling off the face of the earth. I never got word of our 10th or 15th so I obviously didn’t go.

I got word of our 20th and decided to go. I tried to get my wife to go but she didn’t want to go meet a bunch of people she didn’t know. She pushed me to go. We lived about 50 miles away so the plan was for me to stay in town at my mother’s after the event. I had a very nice time. Spoke with a bunch of friends I hadn’t seen for a long time. No drama just fun. Then later my wife accused me of sleeping with someone at the reunion for no other reason than she is a crazy insane person. So it didn’t work out that great.

I went to the 25th and again had a good time. This time I did get laid. I was single so it worked out. It led to a nice FWB relationship that lasted a while. The people I mostly hung out with at that reunion and the after party were people I didn’t know that well in high school. That group has become some of my closest friends since then.

The class president organized the previous reunions. He dropped the ball on the 30th and no one picked it up. We didn’t have one.

The 35th would have been in 2020. There were plans for something less formal than in the past but that fell through for obvious reasons.

93

I went to my 20th high school reunion. The most surprising thing was finding people who were grandparents! 50th reunion is next year. Doubt I will go. (I was called “the walking mass of gray matter”)
Haven’t been to a college reunion since my sorority was disbanded due to a hazing incident. (Hazing incident ?!?!- when I was a member, we were called “The Girl Scout Sorority”. No details were released.
40th Medical School reunion was scheduled for March 2020 and was cancelled. I had already declined attending.

94

@lobotomyboy63 , loved the Janis Joplin video! And Grosse Pointe Blank, I’ve gotta see that movie.

Class of ‘79 here. I’ve been to two, my 20th and my wife’s 25th.

After HS back east I moved 3,000 miles away to San Francisco and have been here ever since. I only went to the 20th because my bestie and I said “I’ll go if you go.” I was single then, and he and I both went stag (now there’s a dated term).

I wasn’t very popular in HS but I knew a lot of people casually. By that I mean I could say hello, how are you to people in different groups (the nerds, the cool ones, some of the jocks) but I didn’t go to a lot of parties. I had a few close friends and we’d hang out or go somewhere together, but that was it. I played some sports, played in the orchestra, and sang in the choir. No school related extracurricular activities, no clubs. I worked maybe 10-15 hours a week for spending money.

The reunion was fun. I recognized many people and could recall their names instantly, even though I hadn’t seen them in 20 years. I’m good at recognizing people. That skill helped me walk up to folks and say hi, how’ve you been? It was fun seeing what people were doing.

The most stunning takeaway was meeting a guy who was a fearsome jock who’d roam the halls. I was certainly intimidated by him. Well 20 years later it was clear that he was an early bloomer while I was a late bloomer. I was now taller by about 4” and I thought to myself, “wow, I used to be afraid of him?” And in talking with him, he was just the nicest guy, very congenial. He went into the Air Force and I was Marine Corps so we compared experiences. A pleasant time.

Most are still back east but some are here in the SFBA. I didn’t go to 30 or 40 but I might go to 50. Sure, why not? We now stay in touch on FB.

At my wife’s 25th it was pleasant enough. She’s from here in the SFBA and she had fun reconnecting with old friends. I politely met some of the guys. And now from time to time some of us regather. FB is handy for staying in touch.

95

Mrs. L and I went to Port Arthur, her home town, on one of our trips. At a museum, we took a selfie in front of a colorful Porsche only to realize later that it was a replica of hers, not the actual car. They’d been really cruel to her in school, throwing pennies at her in the hallway, and later wanted to embrace her when she became famous but she declined the apology, so to speak. When she went to UT/Austin, she was voted Ugliest Man on Campus and that’s when she snapped, heading for California.

Grosse Point Blank has an excellent soundtrack. Here’s a fave

96

My wife has a car like hers and we’re near San Francisco. One day I want to drive there and take similar pictures.

[Album] imgur.com
97

I’d go to one if I could pull a Carrie :slightly_smiling_face:

98

Ugh, just found this: the museum’s replica is not even a Porsche?

The Port Arthur museum has had the replica for at least that long. David Beard, the museum’s director, says the car on display isn’t even a real Porsche. It’s a kit car. Houston artist Brian Gies re-created the paint job.

That article says the real deal was auctioned in 2015. A little further googling:

In 2015, Joplin’s heirs once again took possession of the Cabriolet, offering it at auction. The family had plans to use the money to support charity programs in their sister’s name. It sold on December 10th, 2015 at RM Sotheby’s “Driven By Disruption” sale in New York City. While it was estimated to sell at between $400,000 and $600,000, the winning bid came in at $1.76 million breaking all previous records for the sale of any Porsche 356 sold at public auction.

As usual, Sotheby’s would not disclose the name of the buyer, nor did they come forward at the time. In September 2016, Tim Collins of WBCK Radio reported the owner was a woman who purchased the car as a 60th birthday present to herself. The report also stated that the owner is in the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek, Michigan area. Viable information as the Porsche has been displayed at the Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners, Michigan in October 2016 and, most recently in May 2017.

99

Fascinating info, thanks @lobotomyboy63!

100

Getting back to HS reunions, I will want to go to #50. That’s still a few years away. It’d be 3,000 miles away but yeah I’d go.