Back atcha, sweetheart!
Hey! My dad went to Lane Tech. His most vivid memory (at least the one he’s shared with us kid folk) is nekkid swimming. That and kids ditching school and hanging out at Riverview. Back in the day, of course.
My dad went there as well - class of 38 - the first class to go 4 years at the new location.
Still had the nekkid swimming in the 70s, but Riverview was but a memory.
My favorite memories were exploring the attics and basements during and after track practice (pounding the tile halls, dodging lockers). They had a frigging airplane down there!
Hells no! I hated that place and that experience and haven’t talked to even my friends from those days since the summer after graduation.
They were having a campaign to save the high school from closing down and I would have gone back only to lower the plunger on the explosion box thingie. I even would have made a donation to get to be the one to do it.
I traveled halfway across the country for my 25th, and when the time came for 30, 35, and 40, I was living back home, so only had to go a few miles.
I went to the first one out of curiosity. It was a small, all white school in a rural area, and we graduated in 1963, before life got “interesting”.
I had moved to Seattle, lived in a low income housing project for awhile, gotten involved in different kinds of activism, the War on Poverty, marched in anti-war demonstrations, smoked pot, etc. I was friends with people who were totally different from what I grew up with.
I figured I wasn’t the same person and I was curious about the experiences of my classmates. Did the smartest kids make use of their smarts? Did the delinquents straighten up? Did the slackers end up owning their own businesses? What happened with the religious nuts? Who stayed married? Was anybody gay?
I couldn’t help but be curious. There have been a lot of surprises, and the reunions have all been interesting. (But I don’t think I would have gone if it had been a huge class.)
Your dad’s older than my dad. I think my dad was class of '47. It’s a beautiful school. And I think I’m far more interested in the nekkid swimming dudes than my dad was. Though now they’ve got the whole girl thing going on. Probably not nekkid though.
Count me as a no. In high school, I had neither a hellish nor a wonderful time. I just had a time. I barely remember the name of a single person I went to high school with, so I’d be hanging out, in effect, with a bunch of complete strangers. My conversations would be like, “No, sorry, I don’t remember you… but look, I kept my hair!”
I went to my 10th and it just cemented my already terrible opinions of most of that graduating class. I did look pretty fabulous and had an awesome date, but I might have drank too much toward the end of the evening so I don’t really remember it. I was nervous going, and it wasn’t worth all of the thought I had given it. I felt a little like Romy and/or Michelle. 
Mine is next year. I’m debating going…if only because I have a soft spot for my highschool boyfriend and would be curious if he showed up.
I went to my 20th just to see who’d I recognize. Our class had 160 grads. About 30 or 40 came. Got bored and left.
The 40th just happened about a mile from my home. Didn’t bother. I did find it interesting and surprising that over 10% are already dead. That kind of bummed me out! Never even got to retire.