30 Year High School Reunion

Tonight was my 30th year high school reunion.  How did I get that old when I don't feel that old?  Surely I don't look like I'm nearly 50, do I?  The reunion was put together rather quickly, just within the last two months, and so attendance was minimal.  There were only 47 of us who graduated who were there.  Kent came with me.  He was a good sport, especially with what he/we had to endure.  I was delighted to see some good friends--Craig Gardner, Matt Riddle, Mindy Hafen Smith, Eve Grey York, and Steve and Heather Anderson Densley.  I had hoped for some others to be there, but what can you do?

We arrived and were able to mingle before sitting down for dinner.  All that was good.  It was nice to talk and dinner was good.  Kent and I visited with Eve and her husband, Maria Skinner, and Laurena Rail and James Williams who are both classmates who married each other.

I'm listening intently to James tell us about what he does for a living.

It was pretty interesting.

After dinner was entertainment, and this is where it all went south.  Tony Abbott and Sheryl Hale, along with Andy Andrus and Jason Forest, are the ones who planned the reunion.  They really did a fine job, especially as they didn't really much time.  They decided we needed entertainment (we didn't).  Tony and Sheryl did a lip sync to "You Better Shape Up," from Grease (made in 1978 about the 50s; nothing to do with our class of 88), and Tony knows a guy who does hypnosis.  Nine people got on stage, he "hypnotized" five, and then had them do silly things.  While I suppose it could have been amusing, it went on and on and on and on and on.  For nearly 80 minutes, most of us watched the painful "entertainment," when all we really wanted to be doing was talking to each other.  Sigh.  Michelle Taylor had put together a great slide show with pictures from the yearbook, footage from assemblies, photos classmates sent in from high school as well as current family photos, and a tribute to classmates who has died.  It was fun to watch all that.

After all that, we did have time to visit again, but several people I had hoped to talk to had left by then, and Kent and I didn't linger long afterwards.  I suppose once every five or ten years, it's good to get together and see how people are doing.  It made me realize that there are friends I would like to see again, and that I need to make an effort to get together with them outside an organized event.  But here's to reunion-ing and the class of '88!

The reunion was at Shade, the former Vineyard Garden and now fancy plant place

with space for events.

45 of 365 graduates

That's only 12%.

Sadly, not a huge turnout.

with Heather Anderson Densley,

the one person I really, really wanted to see.

Surely we don't look like we're nearly 50.

About an hour before the reunion was to start, I said, "I think I need to go upstairs and get ready for the reunion."  Blythe said, "Why? What's wrong with what you're wearing?"  Somehow, it didn't seem like quite the right look.