To the class of ’67

I have hinted in the past that I had a big, BIG reunion coming up, the kind with a stunningly large number attached — 50. (If you are doing the math please bear in mind that I graduated when I was 7 years old!)

I enjoyed our 25th reunion and we had a mini 40th event that was fun. Although I passed on a few of the 50th reunion events, I was excited to attend the Saturday night dinner. I just felt lucky. Lucky to have a reunion and lucky to be able to attend.

First and most important, this reunion was a huge success. It was fun, heartwarming, and a little bittersweet since we missed those who could not attend. It was also, as one friend pointed out, oddly comforting to be with these people who had shared so much of our daily lives, often from kindergarten or first grade all the way through high school graduation. We weren’t all best friends, or even friends for that matter, but we were classmates. In it together.

Framing those four years

Frankly, the Class of ’67 has always thought itself a little special. Our high school years were book-ended with the Kennedy assassination in the fall of our freshman year (when we were old enough to grasp the historic aspect but too young to really put it into perspective) and a deadly tornado that devastated our community late one Friday afternoon a month before our graduation.

We all have our own stories of seeing or hearing the funnel cloud; many of the boys were still at school for athletic events and, after taking cover inside, walked back out to total devastation. Nearby buildings flattened, cars and buses tossed around like toys, and even some loss of life. Now, of course, we know to call this traumatic shock. Fifty years ago we walked around in a fog for weeks, eyes to the sky for signs of another storm.

Because the same tornado heavily damaged the high school itself, our graduation was held outside. (Our choice, as I recall, as opposed to holding it at another school.) At some point late that day, clouds began rolling in. By the time the evening event was underway, the sky was ominous and only a handful of students (including me, because I was a Brown) actually received our diplomas, before everyone ran for cover in the building. It was a real downpour. Most of the class received their diploma from a teacher, standing on a cafeteria table, calling out names. No speeches, no Pomp and Circumstance. Just a lot of wet students and parents milling about.

One more thing to make us feel special, the graduation that wasn’t.

Back to this weekend…

If happy hugs, shared memories, and iPhone photos are any evidence, this reunion was a great success. But many of us agreed the reunion also had a comfortable and comforting warmth to it. We were all middle class baby boomers, the sons and daughters of the “greatest generation.” We communicated using the family phone, had Friday night curfews, and were happy to drive a well-used car. We graduated into the Vietnam era and its accompanying angst.

Life got increasingly more complicated.

Some of us have traveled farther from those roots — literally and figuratively — than others. There are no rock stars in this group, no zillionaire titans of business (at least that I know), just a bunch of older baby boomers who have done the best we could. Where we have been didn’t matter one bit this weekend. We were sharing time together.

To classmates I reconnected with this weekend who may be reading this, am I on to something here? Or am I over-thinking it? Thank you for your warmth and friendship and a great time (and extra, double-huge thanks to the hard-working committee that put this together). To the classmates who missed this event, we’ll see you next time.

To the rest of my readers, if you have a reunion opportunity, I hope you just go.