Throw Back Thursday

Throw Back Thursday


Ok.

Here's one of the best things about this blog.

It has gotten me out of my comfort zone and made me more determined to see friends old and new. My Fortieth HS reunion was great fun and I loved reconnecting with people I hadn't seen or talked to in ages.  After being overwhelmed at the Thirtieth, I really had not planned to go to the Fortieth, but I'm so glad I did.

One of the people I chatted with was Caren, a friend from elementary school. Somehow we grew apart in Junior High (that's what it was called back in the day, none of this "middle school" nonsense).  She was cooler than I.
And I'm crushed because there is a wonderful photo of the two of us on her horses at her farm from elementary days...except it is safely tucked away on my desk in Texas.

Anyhoo......

Liddy, Susan, Me

When I posted last week about my going to breakfast with Liddy and Susan, Caren sent me some pics of us from elementary school.

Yay for Girl Scouts.
Sadly I still have basically the same haircut now as I did in Girl Scouts. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Don't have all the names but I know that's 

Caren, Maria,  ?, Me, Liddy, and Sandy

(And O! The smirk on Liddy's face. I know it well. Love.)

And then this one is not quite so clear...but here I am with Susan and friends.

Caren, Lida, Kathy,?, Susan in the red, Ann, ?, Me in the hat, Sandy,?, and ?

I am absolutely so fortunate that fifty plus years later I am still friends with, in touch with, connected to these fun people. 

And my how we have grown!!

So here's the take-away.

Relationships have seasons and sometimes they wax and wane. Some will end.
But I think that the connections you make with people that you grow up with are strong.  It's a great backbone. There's a shared history. Doesn't mean you have to chat daily or even yearly. And time smooths over a lot of things. Differences that may have seemed huge when you were younger seem less as time goes on.

That's a good thing.

So, if you  have ever thought of getting in touch with an old friend, do it. The internet is wonderful for that.
Ok, you may realize there's a reason you don't speak.
But maybe, just maybe, you'll expand your circles.

And that also is a good thing.

(Thanks a billion Caren for these photos!)

No. 35: Go to My 40th High School Reunion

No. 35: 40th High School Reunion: DONE!


O my!!

This one was fun.

Funny, isn't it? I went to my 30th High School Reunion and was overwhelmed by all the people, and everyone seemed so old and unfamiliar.  I stayed about an hour, and actually could not leave soon enough. There were zero photos to even document that I was there.

I'm thanking good ol' social media for making this more manageable.   I've seen pictures of many high school friends on Facebook even if I am not officially "friends" with all of them. That helped the recognition factor considerably.

Our class panoramic photo. 

I looked and looked and could not find myself. 

I know I was there. 

And I would credit this photo but I don't know who took it. Sorry. 

Another help was most of the spouses stayed home unless they actually attended our school at one time. No one was trying to impress anyone; no one was trying to pick anyone up; everyone just seemed to want to visit and catch up.  And most of the spouses realized if they didn't know anyone, it just wouldn't be fun. The spouses that did come banded together and entertained each other. Not having all the extra spouses meant that I didn't have to search faces to see if one was recognizable.

My spouse came but was a good sport and didn't complain once about being abandoned at a table with a few other men he had just met.

The invitation for the night. 

Slightly wrinkled from its travels. 

Kind of like all the attendees.

I LOVED seeing all of these faces again.

I must say the women fared better than the men in the looks department for the most part. I thought men were supposed to get more distinguished and the women were supposed to get frumpy. Ha!
That was not so much the case here.
Hair dye probably gets a lot of credit for the disparity. The women dye, the men don't.
Although one person came up to me and said "You are blonde!" and I replied "I've always been blonde." And then I looked at my Senior picture where I was anything but blonde. I was blonde until I was 6 years old....then I picked it up again when I was in my mid twenties. What a surprise to me!
I always thought I was blonde, I had just gotten blonder. Nope.

Anyway, there were highlights and lowlights, as is the case with any evening.

My Favorite Spontaneous Interaction came when one of the former hunky football players who now is a bit more rotund (think of Mr. Krabs from SpongeBob SquarePants for a physique) practically twirled up to me, glanced at my name tag and gleefully announced "I remember you! Do you remember me?". When I replied "Of course", he spun away.  Made my night.

Some of us were shaped like this, some of us weren't.

We all looked darling.

The Most Huh? Moment came from a class member that sidled over, glanced at my name tag, looked at me and said "Nope. I didn't know you." Which was odd, since I know that yes, you did know who I was. Whatever.  I'm filing that under the "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" category.

And the Most Mind Blowing Conversation was with a guy from my home room. We weren't ever close friends but we were in the same home room for ever. We chatted and I told him where I was living now and he said "Do you know where Mt. Princeton is?"
Why, yes, I was there last week, soaking in the hot springs as a matter of fact.
"Well, my family owned it from the mid 1960s to the mid 1980s."
 WHAT???  Ninety percent of the people I talk to have no idea where this part of Colorado even is.  When I expressed disbelief, he rattled off a list of little town names that would only be known by a local.
"Tin Cup, Chalk Creek, St. Elmo's, Buena Vista, Nathrop. Do you believe me now?"
I was totally taken aback. Once I got home I had to Google the Mt. Princeton history just to verify and yep, there was his family name. Wow.

Me, last year, at Mt. Princeton Spa. 

And my classmate's family used to own it.

Wow.

But mostly it was just delightful to see all of these people that I had spent a good part of my childhood/teen years with. Friends from Girl Scouts. Girls I had disagreed with. Boys that had dumped me. Boys I had dumped. Didn't matter. Everyone was just happy to see each other.

Thrilled that I went. Can't wait for the 50th .

Annnnnnddddd......
I took pics during the night and will share them on Thursday.
I did my best to get follow up pics of all the peeps that were on last week's Throw Back Thursday post.
Won't that be a fun comparison?!

A Reunion Run Through...

Practicing for the Reunion

No. 35 on my list is Go to My 40th High School Reunion.

For my next list maybe it will be go to my 70th high school reunion!
(I have one great champion who says I need to do a 90 x 90 once I'm done with 60 x 60. )

Yesterday I drove my mom and dad to her 73rd high school reunion. She was graduated from JH Reagan High School, Houston Texas in 1941. Amazingly there were 725 kids in her graduating class. That is a huge number even by today's standards. At the time it was the largest graduating class in Texas. 

Reagan was established in 1927 as an all-white high school. Wait! You could do that?? 

Ah! Here's an explanation.  It was named after John H. Reagan (not Ronald Reagan) who was the Postmaster General and then the Secretary of the Treasury of the Confederate States. After the Confederacy fell, he became a U.S. Senator from Texas. He died in 1905 and then had a high school named after him 22 years later. 

The reunion was held at The Golden Corral on the Northwest Freeway and there were 9 attendees (7 graduates and two spouses) plus 5 drivers. Everyone in the graduating group is aged 90 or above...except for the two youngsters who are just turning 90 this next month.  This group meets every month but not everyone shows up every time. Apparently more than a few just come once or twice a year. The Christmas reunion seems to be the big one. 

Stella, Richard, Jean, Annabelle (?), Fred, Roy,  Ilene, Margaret

Roy is the interloper- he didn't graduate with these guys.

In the next room over (still at the Golden Corral) was the Lamar H.S. Men's Club which had men from the 1940/41/42 graduating years. ( The wives are only allowed to come at Christmas.)  This group had an even bigger turn out-maybe 20 to 25 men. They also meet monthly. There was a bit of visiting back and forth between the groups...some of these  people had known each other since grade school.   Lamar High School was opened in 1937and was my high school's biggest rival.

Hedley and Jean Mom

He's from Lamar, she's from Reagan.

Lamar was Robert E. Lee's rival by the time I got to high school.

Before lunch started there was a recap of the news which pretty much was a list of who was in the hospital/rehab/ground. Then everyone ate and visited. No alcohol was served. Everyone behaved.

Delivering the news.

I'm not sure I will be able to say the same for my 40th coming in September. 

Dad and Margaret.

Mom swears she always gets a pic of them hugging.

Had to carry on the tradition.

 A note: 

Robert E. Lee High School, my high school, was built in 1962 to relieve overcrowding at Lamar HS.  It is now officially Lee Senior High School and references to General Lee have been removed from the school.  Robert E. Lee was a General in the Confederate Army. 

A little revisionist history anyone?