Everyone has endured the angst of a class reunion at one time in their lives and I am no exception. I have a big one coming this summer. I cringe to say this is the 40 year reunion, and of course I have no idea how this event arrived so quickly. Where did the last 20 years of my life go? I had never planned on being this old, but just like Dad used to say.."They sneak up on ya".they sure did but this time they were behind the wheel of a Mack truck. I am not going to dwell on the subject of age, there is nothing new to be said, and absolutely nothing you can do about it. I will instead speak on renewing old relationships.
As a child and teen I lived in a small northern Ohio lake front town of some wealth and privilege, for which my parents [not of wealth] sacrificed and worked to afford me a better education. The classic American dream scenario, which the majority of baby boomers also experienced as well.” You are going to college whether you want to or not" was the mantra chanted across the nation in early 60s. Somewhere between Elvis and The Supremes my family moved up the ladder, so that I could benefit from a better school system. I was dropped into a world of sailboats, private beaches, country clubs and rich kids. Needless to say it did'nt take me long to get the hang of it, a problem my parents had not anticipated.
My childhood was picture perfect, cub scouts, skateboards, [fashioned from roller skates], tandem Schwinn bicycles, long summers picking up beach glass,[way before the jewelry] and a neighborhood full of kids my age, a child’s paradise. This idyllic childhood continued through junior high as I blissfully built model cars and attached baseball cards to the frame of my bicycle to simulate a Harley's roar.
The dream ended as time moved forward and it was off to HIGH SCHOOL. This was nothing like my carefree elementary days. Now the days were full of other more adult concerns,[we thought]..Now it was clothes, cars, Christmas trips to Vail, and which clique you belonged to. In case my term clique is no longer in common usage I will explain, a clique is a group of people that share certain attributes, physical, mental or financial. At the top of the heap were the beautiful, rich and athletic, the jocks, the "Lettermen" and their blond cheerleader girlfriends, next were the really smart kids, the brains and harp playing prodigies. The next group were the "Greasers” as we called them, these guys rolled their smokes in their tee shirt sleeves and hung out in the metal shop, and were always in the assistant principals office for one infraction or another. The female version still teased their hair..[way too 50s for the cheerleader types] wore black leather car coats and used four letter words. The last group was the ones that did not fit any of the above, the smart but undisciplined, the rebellious, the “A.V.” guys [record players and 8mm. projectors] the geeks, the just plain weird and retards, [before that label was banned] and last but not least the artists, poets, the theatrical types and those referred to as "sensitive"[no need to explain what that meant]
The hippie movement did not hit my school until 1966, prior to that year the art types were “rebels without a cause”. The Vietnam war and the Kent State shootings gave us all cause we needed to unite. Needless to say I was among those who embraced the anti war counterculture whole-heartedly, long hair, bell bottoms, and peace signs et al. The rigid social structure of my high school was turned upside down. The beach boys were deemed worthless and shallow, the beat poetry of Bob Dylan became the rule of the day. The age old caste system based on beauty and athletic prowess seemed hopelessly out of date as the protests increased. The school administrators tried to heal the wounds of social upheaval by creating a class called "Human Relations" the precursor of today's encounter group. We were supposed to confront each other on our differences to make for mutual understanding. A very edgy concept for the time, thinking back on it now I muse, what could be more ridiculous?, a room full of naive privileged white 16 year olds venting their political and emotional angst. The class at times was a disaster, with confrontations between factions often based on petty jealousies and who’s dating whose boyfriend, although there were moments when the prevailing class distinctions broke down and real exchange occurred, but it quickly disappeared as soon as the bell rang,so much for that high minded experiment in education.
What does all this have to do with my reunion? I will tell you. I have been actively engaged in the planning of this event for 3 months. In that time I have reconnected with a good many of my classmates. It is comforting and disquieting at the same time. I find that with many we can pick up exactly where we left off 40 years ago, and that we are the same despite the time elapsed. Some classmates to whom I never spoke have become new friends and many who were the polar opposite of me have changed their tune and explained in detail the reasons for the change,[Face book chat is perfect for cathartic exchange] and some I did not like then and still don't for all the same reasons. It seems we boomers are feeling our mortality. We were the generation that set out to change everything and some things did change. The irony lies in the fact that we are still fundamentally the same, the jocks, the cheerleaders, the greasers, the hippies... with one big difference the class distinctions have disappeared,we grew up,and time marched on, just maybe the concept behind the Human Relations class has finally come to fruition.
I am glad to see we all became adults,[finally] It is reassuring to know I'm not alone in the incomprehensible flight of time, and we can share our common history,laugh at our differences and enjoy each others company without the baggage of adolescence. Bonnie Raitt put it perfectly when she sang;
"Life gets mighty precious when there's less of it to waste"
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