Going To My High School Reunion--I Think!

The other day a postcard came to me in the mail to herald the 50th reunion of my high school class exactly one year from now. How nice of them to get a save-the-date out to me twelve months in advance—now I will have plenty of time to completely overhaul myself before I dare step on board with I have no idea how many sixty-eight-year-olds who once were “cool in school!”

Since I was never “cool,” I won’t have to make as much of an effort. Ha! I went onto the web site provided on the postcard and saw a current group picture of my reunion committee—none of whom I recognized, although their names were familiar. Regrettably, I never kept in touch after graduation with anyone I went to high school with. I had transferred there after two years of Catholic school—an all-girls high school in my hometown, located across campus from the all-boys high school. The girls were not allowed to be over in the boys’ buildings and vice-versa—yet, there were occasional attempts to “mix” via a sock-hop after a game but of course I didn’t know any of the boys (because I followed the rules and never went over to their building!) except for the few I knew from the Catholic grammar school I had attended for eight years and they weren’t all that mysterious to me having known them since they were about five years old. I was painfully shy on top of it, taller than most of the boys, and I didn’t feel I was pretty. Of course, the curriculum was excellent but curriculum was of absolutely no interest to me at that point in my life (foolish girl)—I wanted to at least look at the boys in class and hope perhaps one or two might speak to me! So my mother wisely allowed me to enter public school at the start of my junior year where I looked forward to each day even though I didn’t learn as much. It is the public school I attended that is having the reunion—although maybe if I am lucky the Catholic girls high school just might send me a postcard too (why do I think their reunion won’t be as much fun?).

Anyway, when I brought up on my computer screen the group photo of the reunion committee, complete with the girls’ maiden names, I went hunting for my yearbook from my senior year to compare. I have to say, time is not kind! But then, I have only to look in my mirror and then glance at my senior photo to know that. I’m telling all the eighteen-year-olds out there right now that no matter what you do—you are not going to look like you do now ever again. The kind classmates on the reunion committee understand this, however, and even say in a really sweet poem on the web site that it doesn’t matter if you are rich, if you are poor, if you are fat, if you are losing your hair, if you have a tummy, etc., etc., come to the reunion! There will be drinking, so that should help. I am thinking, after 50 years it probably doesn’t matter that I didn’t keep in touch with any of them—probably no one is going to recognize anybody else anyway!

But just in case—and because they’ve already indicated our name tags will display our senior photo—I finally have an incentive to try to look as close to eighteen as I possibly can, without the expense of plastic surgery (no reunion is worth $5,000+). And besides, on this same web site they published the 92 names of those classmates who have died over the years—cripes! I looked them up as well in my yearbook and realize I had known some of them—how sad that they are no longer around! I felt better then—after all, I may look older but at least I am still here!

So, I am thinking right now that I just might go—but in case I decide not to go, I am still going to send in my biography with a current photo so I can at least buy the memory book and find out what everyone else has done with their lives. See—I’m really not that all certain I’ll go! I am still shy, still tall, and I still don’t think I’m all that pretty.