REUNIONS

By

Gerry Niskern

Is your high school graduation class having a reunion this spring?  After all, this is the season.   Everywhere committees have been busy tracking down fellow classmates, working the phones and mailing out invitations for the big bash.

When your summons arrives you are usually informed that they want a short bio and pictures. PICTURES! Calling Dr. Atkins in the Zone on South Beach!

Then there’s the question of what do you wear to a reunion party? Anything you want. At our big reunion I saw casual slacks and Hawaiian shirts, suits, shorts, white gauze pajamas with sandals; and that was just on the men! The women wore sexy “little black” dresses, long cotton patio dresses, suits and “Sunday go to meetin’ ” outfits.

It seemed to be confession time for the women talking to my resident historian that evening.  “I was in love with you all through high school” and “You didn’t know it, but I had a crush on you”, were a few of the remarks I heard. “Those tight jeans and that black leather jacket!” laughed one. I was beginning to think I was attending that reunion with “The Fonz”.

If you haven’t attended your 30^th, 40^th or 50^th reunion yet, just wait. They’re the best. The barriers are down; broken by years of living.  Who cares in which side of the valley you used to live? Does anyone really remember whether you drove a “hot” car, rode the bus or rode a bike to school? It was great to see the two guys who had competed fiercely for top grades laughing and reminiscing together.

As for the short bio that our invitation requested, let’s just say our class had all been busy. We’d had marriages, divorces, more marriages, children, weddings, and grandchildren. Most of the men had chosen professions and then changed careers and changed again. Many of the women who started out as “stay at home moms” discovered later it was great to pursue a profession.

Some of our classmates served in the Korean War. Some didn’t return.  A few had sons who served in Vietnam. And now there were grandsons deployed to the Middle East.

We were in on the beginning of the war on drugs.  We ran straight into the sexual revolution, marijuana, the Pill and The Rolling Stones.

While we were busy experiencing life, the super stores replaced the corner grocery. The old drugstore with the soda fountain and home delivery disappeared too.

The women’s hair styles changed from the pageboy to the beehive and then to curly and back to straight again.   Skirts have gone up and down several times and the guy’s tight Levis are now relaxed fit. The jean jackets we wore are being worn by our grandchildren, but they are not $3.00 anymore.

We saw the Berlin Wall fall and the first man walk on the moon while we tried to see the world too.

We went from our first cars to station wagons, vans, SUVs, and back to “cool” cars.  We’ve embraced credit cards, ATMs, cell phones and computers. We’re working out, watching our cholesterol and have given up cigarettes.

So, If your reunion invitation arrives this spring, be sure to go. Life has a way of leveling the playing field.  I promise you, out on the dance floor you’ll see that the Campus Queen and the football hero are candidates for Extreme Makeover; and surprise, the class “dork” has become quite a dancer.

So go, and have a ball!