I joined Key Club – the student auxiliary of the Kiwanis – at some point during my Junior year. I was crushing on two of the club’s girls by graduation. Kelly got married, pretty sure Connie did as well.
I graduated HS in the mid 1970’s, and I’ve been able to attend most of the reunions (an excuse to do something while visiting my parents).
After a few of them, they did away with having live bands; thank goodness - we wanted to be able to talk to others.
At the 20th reunion the (local) organizers decided it be fun to put on a fashion show of clothes from back then - leisure suits, polyester shirts, bell bottoms - modeled by local high school kids. It went well until one girl came out in a tight-fighting tube top, to the resultant ooh-ah reactions. The main organizer cries out, “But she’s my daughter!”
At the same 20th reunion, the top jock and class president confided to me that high school had been the highlight of his life; everything else was downhill after that. It was worth going just for that.
Yes, thanks. I remember seeing it in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland awhile back, but hadn’t realized it’s no longer there.
@Bullitt @Elendil_s_Heir Here’s a good doc that you may enjoy.
I hope someone cried back, “Panderer!”
In retrospect I was a kind of a big fish in a small pond in my small town high school. I thought college was going to be the same, only better. Boy, was I wrong. But when I see depictions of college life on TV or in movies, I don’t identify. They have cars? They don’t have to work? They never seem to study…? Maybe they were born with a silver spoon in their mouth?
Somewhat similarly, I went to my 40th, a couple of years ago. I moved away from Toronto years ago, to a place about 2000 miles away, but figured that my 40th was a good reason to return and see what had became of my old classmates, as well as to catch up with a couple of old non-high-school friends. And I wasn’t the only one who had travelled in for the reunion; there were old classmates there who were now living in places as far away as San Jose CA, and Whitehorse YT.
The reunion was great, and it was nice to see a lot of people I hadn’t seen in ages. All our old cliques had melted away, and we were no longer the cool kids, the jocks, the nerds, and so on; we were simply the Class of 1979.
What was a little saddening was the “In Memoriam” board, where the photos and names of our classmates who had passed, were posted. Some, I suppose, were the result of bad luck–cancer, heart attack, car accident–but one stood out. It was a girl I knew somewhat well, back in the day, and whom I tutored in English. When I asked about her, I was told she was a suicide, but nobody could tell me what drove her to that.
In spite of that news, it was worth it to travel that far. It was a fun weekend, reconnecting with old friends, and finding out what they are doing now. And though it made me feel old, it was fun hearing about all the grandchildren that people in our class had.
I recall reading circa 1990 that the Procrastination Society was putting the final touches on its Bicentennial celebration.
Myself and a classmate organised our 25th a good few years back. We have refrained from organising any more. I think we both felt it was a lot of work to organise a party for people with which we realised neither of us felt much need to reconnect.
It was fun being a big fish in a tiny pond but that’s not much of which to be proud.
Re: Grosse Point Blank. I freaking love this movie! My only disappointment was that so little was actually filmed in Michigan, because I’d recently returned from visiting a friend there and was hoping to see some local scenery. And the reunion dance? It was filmed at the Culver City Veteran’s Auditorium where I’d spent a ton of time during my childhood and adolescence. It took me out of things a bit.
I spent some time there too! It was where my synagogue held High Holiday services. I grew up in Mar Vista. My dad, stepmom and stepsisters lived in CC.
Cool! And I had relatives (aunt/uncle/cousins/grandma) in Mar Vista.
Ha! Reminds me of: At Last the 1948 Show - Wikipedia
Back on point:
My tenth? I was deployed. No interest anyway.
Twentieth? Busy with work, still no interest.
Thirtieth? Still no interest.
There’s a Facebook group that I joined once, but left, because I realized they’re all still the same-ol’, boring people. It was very ‘clique-y’ and I wasn’t in that clique, so. . . meh.
Tripler
I actually travelled and broadened my horizons.
My 25th class “anniversary” was a few years ago and I got an invite on Facebook. I put anniversary in quotes because I actually dropped out halfway through my senior year and never ended up graduating. I wasn’t exactly surprised I was still invited though because I went through all 12 years in the same small town and with the same group of people.
I did NOT end up going for a variety of reasons…
As far as college reunions go, I would never bother attending a reunion for my undergrad university. It is a very large university, and most of my friends graduated the year after I did or the year after that. I would therefore be very surprised if I ran into a single person I knew if I went to one. I did attend a reunion for my veterinary school, though.
I did not attend the most recent one - 45 years - in SW Virginia like the OP.
The only one I attended was the 25th. My wife said “a lot of attractive women were in your class”. I pointed out that only the ones who aged well showed up. From online pictures, that was not true for the 45th.
My high school class has never had a reunion (or failed to contact me if they did).* They also didn’t have a prom. Too cool for either one, I suspect.
I just checked and there is a Facebook page for alumni. I didn’t join though, as I’m too cool to have my name show up on the member list.
*there are a few classmates I wouldn’t mind seeing, though it would be a downer to show up and find they had OD’d or were serving long prison sentences.