It's that time again. It happens every year but for most every 5 years. Class reunions. If you graduated in 2011, 2006, 2001, 1996, 1991, 1986, 1981, 1976, 1971, 1966, 1956, 1951, 1946, 1941 or 1936, you will be celebrating (if invited) to your 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th, 25th, 30th, 35th, 40th, 45th, 50th, 55th, 60th, 65th, 70th, 75th or 80th class reunion. I tend to think that the last 3 or 4 of those may have few attendees. This year marks the 40th for my class. I have no intention to attending any reunion. Why? I'll tell you. First, I didn't attend the 35th, the 30th, the 25th or the 20th. I was talked into attending the 15th, but that was the only one and would not have attended it either, if I wasn't coerced by my then wife (my #2 ex). We both graduated from that school. For her, she wanted to prove something. I could care less. She still does. She tried to cajole me into attending which will be sometime this summer near Reading, PA. I'M NOT GOING!!!! I have nothing to prove to anyone.
There are 3 class reunions that touch me: 1) The school I spent one year and graduated from; 2) The school I spent 2 years and might have graduated from had my gypsy parents not decide to move...AGAIN; and 3) The school in the town I spent most of my childhood/life and the school I truly wanted to graduate from. This town, East Brunswick, NJ. I have always considered this place home though I've been removed from it for 43 years. EB was the longest (10 years) I lived anywhere in one house until recently. In August I will celebrate my 12th year in my Mayfair (Philadelphia, PA) home. In spite of that, I still feel my heart and soul is in EB and those schools. The best times, the good times, the bad times and yes, even the worse of times were encapsulated in my life journey's launch from that town. I had a plan. We all form plans as children. I would go through the EB school system, graduate, attend Rutgers, graduate, find a job in NYC, meet a girl or marry one from the hometown, maybe pop out a rug rat or two, retire to Florida or Arizona or Belize. Die and be reincarnated as a Zoo Polar Bear. (The zoo bear is from my sister's final Blog.) Such are youthful plans and ideas. Plans derailed. For the most part that town nurtured me into the snarky individual I am today. The snarkiness really came much later. That usually blooms from graceful aging where once you hit a certain age the filter comes off the mouth and attitudes change to where you no longer care what people think of you.
Let me elaborate on the 3 schools. The first, Twin Valley, we'll refer to as TV, I have no emotional connection. I could care less. I knew those people for 9 months (one school year). I have nothing in common with these people. They grew up in a very rural part of Berks County Pennsylvania. I grew up in the much, much too cool suburbs of Central/North Jersey. I'm not sure if EB is considered North Jersey or Central. It's not Pennsylvania for sure. It's closer to NYC than Philly. Also, I tend to think that I would be more out of place at any TV reunion. Most of them barely remembered me at the 15th. The last photo I saw of my former classmates was from the 35th reunion and all those people looked so goddamn old. I mean grandparently old. (Not a word, but it best describes these people whom I no longer recognize because they all are gray-haired or balding and really, really fat. And I'm describing just the women. JK.) As I do not resemble them, I'm sure they would mistake me for the food server or something. Truth is: I look good. I mean being mistaken for 45 years-old good. Not my primary reason to not attend, but a damn good humanitarian reason. I don't want any of them to go home after the reunion and beat their spouses or shoot themselves because I turned out so well and they look like shit.
The second school is Satellite HS in Satellite Beach, Florida. I spent two gloriously tragic years there. Me along with a lot of displaced kids. I lived less than 1/4 mile from the beach near A1A. Surfing was popular. I never tried it. The one thing I had in common with a lot of the students there were we collectively knew no one. There were a lot of Air Force brats. As career AF tend to move around the world constantly, we were all new to the school. There were life long locals there too. They tolerated us outsiders. Cliques abounded. I was not part of any. Some of the AFB's knew each other because career AF tend be shipped to the same bases. Satellite had ROTC. (It's an Air Force youth club.) TV had 4-H'ers. (It's a farmers youth club.) SHS was next door to Patrick Air Force base. I belonged to no clubs. SHS wasn't a bad school. At least they had a football team. TV did not. LAME!!!! They do now, but what good does that do for a former alumni? Nada. Nothing. Zilch. But I never stayed in touch with any of my former Scorpions either. (That is the SHS's mascot. How cool is that?) For a while I pen-palled with a gal pal during my senior year in the Pennsylvania backwoods and farmland, but as always life got in the way and the connection faded and disappeared. I have no idea what they have planned for a reunion. But I'm 100% positive that I will not be invited or attending.
Lastly, EBHS. Recently through the grace and technological wizardry of Facebook, I have reconnected with a few of these childhood friends. Actually, I found a FB page that was created by an EB resident. It's a page dedicated to everything East Brunswick. I requested to join citing my history with the town and was accepted. Not to any surprise, so have many of my former childhood friends and classmates. Through this connection I connected to a few of them. Somehow because of my connection to them, I've either been accepted or have access to the communications on yet another FB page for the EBHS Class of '76 Reunion. I know it's not like I've stumbled onto the secret headquarters of ISIS but it has allowed me access to see (troll) how childhood acquaintances have fared over the last 43 years. For the most part that was the last time I had contact with many of them. And as EB had two Junior High's at the time, I didn't know very many of the other students that filled the other 50% of the HS. I did learn the fates of a few classmates. More have died than I had expected. And of course, the women I knew and had been enamored of I got to see how well they aged. Many aged well. A few not so much. (Side note: Not too long ago, I saw a picture of my first ex-wife. Yikes!!! Boy, did I dodge that bullet. She did not age well. Looks a lot like her mother, whom I thought was not an attractive woman.)
So I'm torn. Something inside of me emotional eats at my psyche. I can attend the TV reunion but have no desire. I can't and won't attend the SHS reunion. And I can't and won't attend the EBHS reunion where I once felt is where I belonged. Mainly, because I'm not invited. Also, I didn't gradate there. It would be socially wrong to crash (unless I become someone's Plus 1 invite). Most of all, I probably have been long forgotten by just about everyone. There's that sense that I'm a puzzle piece missing from my youth where there's no place to fit to complete the bigger picture. More than all of this there's a verse from a Paul Simon song that plays in my head which sums up my thoughts when I get to thinking about What-Ifs, Maybes and Might-Have-Beens.
Those words couldn't be more true. And I'm not speaking just the girls, but of the entire social group. Even if I was but a fly on the wall viewing the festivities, I imagine that it probably wouldn't be the grand reunion that I would expect or want. Maybe it would be a total letdown. In cases like this, the people you want to see, won't be there. The people you don't want to see, don't remember or ever knew, will be and you would feel like an outsider anyway. It's best to look to what remains of my future and not look back. However, to all your reunions, past, present and future, enjoy yourselves. Reminisce. Regale. Imbibe (but not too much). Me. I'm going to stay home and catch up on my reading. TTFN, MF.
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| Class of '16 (1916) Three Rivers MI HS I was looking for something funny. |
There are 3 class reunions that touch me: 1) The school I spent one year and graduated from; 2) The school I spent 2 years and might have graduated from had my gypsy parents not decide to move...AGAIN; and 3) The school in the town I spent most of my childhood/life and the school I truly wanted to graduate from. This town, East Brunswick, NJ. I have always considered this place home though I've been removed from it for 43 years. EB was the longest (10 years) I lived anywhere in one house until recently. In August I will celebrate my 12th year in my Mayfair (Philadelphia, PA) home. In spite of that, I still feel my heart and soul is in EB and those schools. The best times, the good times, the bad times and yes, even the worse of times were encapsulated in my life journey's launch from that town. I had a plan. We all form plans as children. I would go through the EB school system, graduate, attend Rutgers, graduate, find a job in NYC, meet a girl or marry one from the hometown, maybe pop out a rug rat or two, retire to Florida or Arizona or Belize. Die and be reincarnated as a Zoo Polar Bear. (The zoo bear is from my sister's final Blog.) Such are youthful plans and ideas. Plans derailed. For the most part that town nurtured me into the snarky individual I am today. The snarkiness really came much later. That usually blooms from graceful aging where once you hit a certain age the filter comes off the mouth and attitudes change to where you no longer care what people think of you.
Let me elaborate on the 3 schools. The first, Twin Valley, we'll refer to as TV, I have no emotional connection. I could care less. I knew those people for 9 months (one school year). I have nothing in common with these people. They grew up in a very rural part of Berks County Pennsylvania. I grew up in the much, much too cool suburbs of Central/North Jersey. I'm not sure if EB is considered North Jersey or Central. It's not Pennsylvania for sure. It's closer to NYC than Philly. Also, I tend to think that I would be more out of place at any TV reunion. Most of them barely remembered me at the 15th. The last photo I saw of my former classmates was from the 35th reunion and all those people looked so goddamn old. I mean grandparently old. (Not a word, but it best describes these people whom I no longer recognize because they all are gray-haired or balding and really, really fat. And I'm describing just the women. JK.) As I do not resemble them, I'm sure they would mistake me for the food server or something. Truth is: I look good. I mean being mistaken for 45 years-old good. Not my primary reason to not attend, but a damn good humanitarian reason. I don't want any of them to go home after the reunion and beat their spouses or shoot themselves because I turned out so well and they look like shit.
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| Satellite HS - Lots of improvements since I was there |
The second school is Satellite HS in Satellite Beach, Florida. I spent two gloriously tragic years there. Me along with a lot of displaced kids. I lived less than 1/4 mile from the beach near A1A. Surfing was popular. I never tried it. The one thing I had in common with a lot of the students there were we collectively knew no one. There were a lot of Air Force brats. As career AF tend to move around the world constantly, we were all new to the school. There were life long locals there too. They tolerated us outsiders. Cliques abounded. I was not part of any. Some of the AFB's knew each other because career AF tend be shipped to the same bases. Satellite had ROTC. (It's an Air Force youth club.) TV had 4-H'ers. (It's a farmers youth club.) SHS was next door to Patrick Air Force base. I belonged to no clubs. SHS wasn't a bad school. At least they had a football team. TV did not. LAME!!!! They do now, but what good does that do for a former alumni? Nada. Nothing. Zilch. But I never stayed in touch with any of my former Scorpions either. (That is the SHS's mascot. How cool is that?) For a while I pen-palled with a gal pal during my senior year in the Pennsylvania backwoods and farmland, but as always life got in the way and the connection faded and disappeared. I have no idea what they have planned for a reunion. But I'm 100% positive that I will not be invited or attending.
Lastly, EBHS. Recently through the grace and technological wizardry of Facebook, I have reconnected with a few of these childhood friends. Actually, I found a FB page that was created by an EB resident. It's a page dedicated to everything East Brunswick. I requested to join citing my history with the town and was accepted. Not to any surprise, so have many of my former childhood friends and classmates. Through this connection I connected to a few of them. Somehow because of my connection to them, I've either been accepted or have access to the communications on yet another FB page for the EBHS Class of '76 Reunion. I know it's not like I've stumbled onto the secret headquarters of ISIS but it has allowed me access to see (troll) how childhood acquaintances have fared over the last 43 years. For the most part that was the last time I had contact with many of them. And as EB had two Junior High's at the time, I didn't know very many of the other students that filled the other 50% of the HS. I did learn the fates of a few classmates. More have died than I had expected. And of course, the women I knew and had been enamored of I got to see how well they aged. Many aged well. A few not so much. (Side note: Not too long ago, I saw a picture of my first ex-wife. Yikes!!! Boy, did I dodge that bullet. She did not age well. Looks a lot like her mother, whom I thought was not an attractive woman.)
So I'm torn. Something inside of me emotional eats at my psyche. I can attend the TV reunion but have no desire. I can't and won't attend the SHS reunion. And I can't and won't attend the EBHS reunion where I once felt is where I belonged. Mainly, because I'm not invited. Also, I didn't gradate there. It would be socially wrong to crash (unless I become someone's Plus 1 invite). Most of all, I probably have been long forgotten by just about everyone. There's that sense that I'm a puzzle piece missing from my youth where there's no place to fit to complete the bigger picture. More than all of this there's a verse from a Paul Simon song that plays in my head which sums up my thoughts when I get to thinking about What-Ifs, Maybes and Might-Have-Beens.
Kodachrome
If you took all the girls I knew
When I was single
And brought them all together for one night
I know they'd never match
My sweet imagination
Everything looks worse in black and white
Those words couldn't be more true. And I'm not speaking just the girls, but of the entire social group. Even if I was but a fly on the wall viewing the festivities, I imagine that it probably wouldn't be the grand reunion that I would expect or want. Maybe it would be a total letdown. In cases like this, the people you want to see, won't be there. The people you don't want to see, don't remember or ever knew, will be and you would feel like an outsider anyway. It's best to look to what remains of my future and not look back. However, to all your reunions, past, present and future, enjoy yourselves. Reminisce. Regale. Imbibe (but not too much). Me. I'm going to stay home and catch up on my reading. TTFN, MF.
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