Advice: High School Reunions. Worth it?

Subject: RE: Advice: High School Reunions. Worth it?
From: Mooh
Date: 21 May 00 - 10:06 AM

Keli,

Once again, thanks for a view from the other side! I think I would have loved you in high school, but alas, one of us was born at the wrong time for that.

I don't remember feeling as you do when I was in high school, but sober second thought this morning does make me wonder if the foxy chicks are still, well, foxy. However, I'm still going bass fishing.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Advice: High School Reunions. Worth it?
From: late 'n short
Date: 01 Jun 00 - 02:57 PM

Went to one recently and I'm glad I did. Somebody has taken the time to set one up every year for all grads since the school was torn down about 15 years ago. This one however focused on something that had particular meaning for my class so there was a specific reason for this group of 53-55 year olds to show up. It gave us a chance to reminisce a bit and we spent very little time on what we've done in the interim or are doing now. It was kind of like being back in the cafeteria! I'm sure that will change if we do it again but it made for a very enjoyable few hours.

Subject: RE: Advice: High School Reunions. Worth it?
From: Kim C
Date: 01 Jun 00 - 05:56 PM

Ooooh. Went to my 10th in 1995. (Okay, I'm a baby.) Had a blast. Wasn't sure I would and like many of you, was very iffy about going because I had been a Nerd (like a lot of musicians, huh?). But it was just great and I can hardly wait for the 20th.

Subject: RE: Advice: High School Reunions. Worth it?
From: DougR
Date: 01 Jun 00 - 06:14 PM

I just returned from the reunion I wrote about in this Thread on May 16. It was a blast! Thank God somebody, and I have no idea who, invented name tags.

DougR

Subject: RE: Advice: High School Reunions. Worth it?
From: Mbo
Date: 01 Jun 00 - 06:22 PM

The olny thing I can look forward to is my first grade reunion, which is the last year I was in before I dropped out. That was 14 years ago now...

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Advice: High School Reunions. Worth it?
From: Helen
Date: 01 Jun 00 - 08:50 PM

Mbo,

My partner's nephew is doing home schooling, right from the start. He is in his second year of schooling (approx 7 years old) and he is very reserved and - to my mind - overly sensitive to what people say. He has an older sister who is in 8th grade HS so there is a reasonable gap in their ages. He has no friends his own age.

Even though there are a lot of possibilities for bullying at school (as we discussed on a couple of threads before re: my own recent experiences of workplace bullying) I still worry that this little guy is missing out on a few really important life lessons in socialisation and relating to other people, as well as the emotional highs and lows of friendships. If he doesn't make friends and learn how to fit into groups outside of his immediate family circle, where will he be in a few years, ten years, etc socially. I hope your family encouraged you to mix with other people, especially of your own age.

Rick,

I'm sad that you decided not to go to your reunion. It was talking to the people I hadn't known well at school which made me feel that the reunion was worthwhile -the quiet ones, the different ones, the clever ones, and even some, but not all, of the pain-in-the-butt ones who turned out to have changed for the better - mellowed out, broadened their horizons.

Maybe you could just tap into the reunion organisers' database and find out the contact details of the people you *do* want to catch up with and just e-mail them or write or phone. The whole HS experience can't have been an absolutely total waste of time, could it??

Helen

Subject: RE: Advice: High School Reunions. Worth it?
From: Mbo
Date: 01 Jun 00 - 08:59 PM

Actually, it's kinda funny. When I was younger, my sisters and I used to babysit for the neighbors' kids when their mom came over to our house. Then, when I got into college, well...3 years ago now, I hung around with mostly older people. yea verily, my much beloved and revered "Music Gang" was all made up of folks older than me (the youngest being 1 year older), but I loved them dearly. They were the best pals I ever had at that time, and deservedly to, we hung around 6 days of the week together. I still don't have any friends, really. I tend to be rather quiet, so I don't attract that much attention. But my ceramics class this semester is coming together like no class has since the Music gang days. Shame the semester ends in 2 1/2 weeks. But I've made lots of friends here on Mudcat, and you can bet yer sweet bippie that once I get outta school I'm gonna go see 'em!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Advice: High School Reunions. Worth it?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 02 Jun 00 - 12:43 AM

Helen, thanks for your interest (and the way you express yourself). Actually if I'd discovered the MacDonald High School website a little earlier, I might have felt more positive about going. Truth to tell, a lot of the feelings that made high school a very scary scene for me came back while I was reading it. When you "don't fit in" and you are young it can be very unpleasant. As I got older I realised that I could "create my own environment" filled with folks that shared many of my interests, passions and styles of communication and humour. It's unrealistic to think that you can avoid spending time in the mainstream world....but whenever I need to I can quickly return to that "alternative world" that I love so much.

I plan on getting in touch with a couple of the folks from high school to see what they've been doing for the last thirty years...and who knows, maybe I WILL hit the next reunion.

Rick

Subject: RE: Advice: High School Reunions. Worth it?
From: Easy Rider
Date: 02 Jun 00 - 04:30 PM

Rick:

You should go to the reunion. If you don't, you will always wonder what you missed. If you go and don't like it, well, at least you'll know for sure.

Remember the famous saying, "The follies a man regrets most, in his life, are those not taken, when he had the opportunity"

I just attended my high school class' 35th anniversary reunion, on May 20. In fact I was the Organizer! It was great! About a hundred people came, and we were all really happy to see each other again after all those years. Some people, who didn't know each other 35 years ago, became friends at the reunion. Many of us will continue the reconnections we made that night. Everybody was very friendly and enthusiastic, and everybody had a great time and a great story to tell. Careers ranged from US Congressman (Jerry Nadler) to sheep shearer!

I billed the reunion as a fundraiser, and we raised nearly $10,000, for a welfare fund, to help needy students in the school. We also set up an email list, of about two hundred of the total four hundred people I have on our mailing list, (it was a class of 746), and people have been sending me their autobiographies, to be printed, bound into a book and sold to our classmates, to raise more money for the Fund.

Stuyvesant High School, in NYC, was a special place, and many of our (all boys back then) classmates have stronger bonds with StuyHigh than with their colleges. I'll brag a little. StuyHigh is a special, entrance exam high school, in the NYC public school system, that specializes in science and math. It has the highest academic standards and levels of achievement of any high school in North America. I'm very proud to have gone there. I was Vice President of our Alumni Association, from 1985 to 1998.

Most everybody matures a little in 35 years, and old gripes are long forgotten by now.

Enjoy!

EZR

Subject: RE: Advice: High School Reunions. Worth it?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Jun 00 - 05:05 PM

Thread drift maybe, but I wanted to respond to something Helen said about Home schooling - we thought about it for our son, and in the end decided against it for the same reasons Helen gives. No way of knowing whether that was the right choice or not, but you have to jump one way or another.

But I'm not at all sure if the argument about socializing and that really holds up. What schools tend to do, among other things, is to instill into people the idea that the people you relate to are almost exclusively the same age as you, and so forth. That feeds into assumptions about music and reading and all kinds of things.

And I'm inclined to think that is not a particularly good thing. It's not how human society has been structured for most of the time our ancestors have been on this planet - people of different generations are programmed to work and learn together.

One of the best things about the folk music scene has been, and continues to be, the extent to which it is not geared to any particular generation. I've been in singing circles where an eight year old girl and an 80 year old man followed each other, and received the same non-patronising respect.

Subject: RE: Advice: High School Reunions. Worth it?
From: Helen
Date: 02 Jun 00 - 10:45 PM

Mbo, you put that bippie-bet on a winning horse and get yourself down here to Oz, ASAP. Don't want to get left out of your list of must-meet-Mudcat-mates!!! Gotta have that Rosbif-trio, quartet, whatever with Alison, Spider Tom, and the rest of the gang.

McGrath, I see your point - I wasn't really saying that kids have to only make friends with people their own age - this kid isn't making *any* friends right now, of any age, and that's really sad, and a little scary to me.

Helen

Subject: RE: Advice: High School Reunions. Worth it?
From: Sooz
Date: 18 May 03 - 11:09 AM

I was in two minds whether to go to my Primary School reunion last night, but I took the plunge and was so glad that I did. All those people I hadn't seen for 40 years. We still recogised each other!

Subject: RE: Advice: High School Reunions. Worth it?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 18 May 03 - 01:58 PM

WHAT WAS I THINKING WHEN I STARTED THIS THREAD??!!

Eegads, I'm glad I didn't go to that reunion. Other than chuckling at all the hair-loss and weight-gain, I'd have felt like just as big a loser as I did when I was 17!

Why? Because how do "adults" express themselves? By dancing and making small talk. I couldn't do either then, and I can't now.

Oh Lordy, would I have had a rotten time. It's not like I could take out my guitar and play something 'hot". THAT didn't work when I was IN grade 11.

Whew, narrow escape.

Rick

Subject: RE: Advice: High School Reunions. Worth it?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 18 May 03 - 06:50 PM

Well the state that Manitas came home in, last week, they're a very BAD idea.....

I found him on the sofa at 2.30am, all the lights on, legs and arms akimbo, holding on to a plate that had once contained chicken pieces. Said pieces were now scattered to the four winds where he'd fallen asleep in mid bite, and the cats had decided he'd finished. He was still too drunk to drive the next morning.

And he left the fridge open.....

AGAIN!

LTS

Subject: RE: Advice: High School Reunions. Worth it?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 May 03 - 09:14 PM

If you live long enough, your class will probably quit having them.

Seriously, I've gone to a couple, and had a good time at the ones I've attended. With an original class of 350, there were lots of people I never did know, lots and lots of people who've turned into their parents (or grandparents) and were barely recognizable, and a few that you know instantly. I got better acquainted with a couple at my 30th(?) than I had ever been when at school.

On the other hand, I wouldn't feel bad if something "more important" prevents being there, even for one of the "decade" (or centenial? fairly soon) reunions.

My other half, however, is related to at least half her graduating class, so she sees them all at least occasionally. And she can call the other 4 or 5 anytime - if they don't show up at "Gene's" (see recent Texas thread).

Her school was/is so small that they don't have individual class reunions - just one big everybody come thing. Sort of like a community picnic, usually. Not a big deal.

John

Subject: RE: Advice: High School Reunions. Worth it?
From: Cluin
Date: 18 May 03 - 09:29 PM

Hell, I hated high school when I was THERE. Beef hooked if I'd go to a reunion now.

But a University Residence reunion now, well....

Subject: RE: Advice: High School Reunions. Worth it?
From: Walking Eagle
Date: 19 May 03 - 10:56 AM

Yeah, go. Bring your instruments and be prepared to branch off and have your own reunion with like minded folks if things go flat.

Subject: RE: Advice: High School Reunions. Worth it?
From: Peg
Date: 19 May 03 - 11:56 PM

I went to my twenty year reunion. Had an absolutely fantastic time....

Subject: RE: Advice: High School Reunions. Worth it?
From: GUEST,amergin
Date: 20 May 03 - 04:53 AM

my ten year is this august apparently....i doubt i will go.

Subject: RE: Advice: High School Reunions. Worth it?
From: Billy Suggers
Date: 20 May 03 - 05:10 AM

The only interesting thing about them is that nobody changes much. The nerdy kid with the glasses is now a nerdy auditor with a bald head & glasses. The cocky bully is site foreman on a gas platform. The gorgeous girl I had a crush on all through third year still is ... and moreover still thinks I'm a prat. Id go just to people-watch. Bound to be a song in it .....