Class of '64

This has been a year for reunions. A couple months ago I attended a big affair, a gathering of relatives on my mother’s side of the family. It was a fine event with the requisite tears, laughter and catching-up that good family reunions need.  Another reunion is coming up in just a few days and we’re getting ready to travel again. This one marks the fiftieth year since I graduated from high school. That was in 1964 for folks who have trouble with arithmetic. Hard to believe, I know, since I’m still so warmly wrapped in the glow of youth.

But it’s true. Back in late June of 1964, having turned seventeen only a few months earlier, I completed, what came to be called on various applications and government forms, my formal education. Believe me, I was glad to be done with it all.

Some folks hold high school fondly in their memories. They can recall nearly every event, classmate – friend or foe, teacher and class, and even the lunch ladies and janitorial staff. Athletic events, school dances and plays are all firmly imprinted on the pages of their mental diaries. Proms are on pages trimmed in gold. I suppose that’s as it should be. We should have good memories of those days when hopes were high and serious troubles seemed to be something that happened to other people. But school, for me, was something to be tolerated. It was only a place I attended and not a place where I fully participated, especially in the last two years. In ninth and tenth grade I was more involved, excited about learning and having a social life. In eleventh and twelfth grades I learned that rebellion was more interesting than conformity. In fact, in my senior year I probably spent more time cutting classes, hitchhiking around the back roads of our county, and reading forbidden books than I spent in the halls of academia.

My friends in school were of a casual sort, not the “best friend forever” type. I got along, especially with my female classmates.  The two years I spent at an all-male religious school were tougher because they were not softened by the gentility of young women. Returning to my hometown public school for my senior year was a good thing even if I wasn't participating to the fullest. Girlfriends were far more important than classes. Ditching the last three periods of the day so I could hitch rides to a nearby town to meet my true love at her bus stop seemed more enjoyable than being confined to a school building. Somehow I managed to keep up with the schoolwork and brought home passing grades. My absences weren’t missed as long as the report cards were okay.

There were some good times at school. The advanced English class kept my attention and fortunately it was a morning session. Working on the school literary magazine was also a fine activity and I was proud to be a part of that effort. The literati were not as highly esteemed as the athletic people. That held doubly true for boys. Our school had a mixture of farmer’s kids and kids who came from the working class. That working class, more often than not, meant that the dads (and sometimes the moms) were employed by Eastman Kodak or the General Motors affiliate that built carburetors. Some of the families might be considered upper middle-class but there were very few rich kids in our school. Athletics were valued. The FFA was trendy. Driving a souped-up car was a real status symbol, especially if you did your own work. But reading Dostoevsky, Kerouac, Keats or Milton wouldn't get a guy an invitation to a party.

So this weekend my dear wife and I will go back to the old hometown and take part in the reunion activities. I've asked myself why I want to celebrate this fifty year milestone with so many folks who were mostly just faces in the halls of our school. Only a few could be considered friends. However, since the advent of Facebook quite a number of my classmates have signed on as my “friends”. Some have even started corresponding with me on a fairly frequent basis. Perhaps time has erased some of the cliquishness that existed all those years ago. Perhaps there is more nostalgia in my mind than I admit to in conversation. And maybe I just want to see how the years have treated our generation. Who has aged well? Who has not been so kindly handled by time’s passing? And who has passed on to that “Senior Prom in the Sky”. It should be fun.

Now have a fine day.