This past Saturday was my high school class 45th reunion, an informal affair held in a park back home with a picnic. My friend Diana is the one who organized it, and I cannot tell you how heartbroken I am that I couldn’t be there. I’m still struggling with long covid, and unable to be outside for more than a few minutes, let alone be around more than one person without my central nervous system going haywire.
(I’m improving but know my limitations. Still, it would’ve been nice to see this crew in person, especially after losing 50 pounds this past year. What a waste of my trim bod!)
To be very honest, when Diana sent me this photo I probably recognized less than five people. We didn’t have a big class to begin with (I think the Jefferson Morgan Class of ‘79 was around 109 students) but of the classmates I was close to, none were here.
Still, I feel a real kinship with this group and may never see them again. :^(
I don’t know why, but I was never big on class reunions in the first place. I didn’t attend our 5th in 1984, because I was a college dropout and embarrassed to be working in the Garden Shop of our local Murphy’s Mart.
By the time our 10th one rolled around in 1989, I had gone back to school, got a great IT job in the city, had a closet full of suits… but was anxious to focus on my future and leave the past behind. Dumb.
I was ready to attend our 40th in 2019, but there simply wasn’t enough interest and it was canceled. Diana wanted to do a “Happy 60th Birthday Party” a year later (as most of us were turning 60) but the covid pandemic nipped that event.
Well, we have a 50th coming up in 5 more years. Diana says I’ll be attending that one for sure, we’ll see. Fingers crossed!
PS. Back in 2017, when I met up with my former classmate Karen for the first time since high school (I wrote about her here) we talked about our class and how neither of us ever went to a reunion. We made a promise to attend the next one together, which of course didn’t happen.
Karen succumbed to the rapid onset dementia she was diagnosed with last summer, and passed on August 25, 2024. Rest in peace, Karen.
