The World and High School(s)

I was at our church for a meeting the other Sunday evening, and the guy next to me mentioned that he had lived in Cheyenne, Wyoming.  I once lived there and told him I had graduated from East High School, class of 1966.  Turns out both he and his wife were alumni. He was a couple years ahead of me, she a year behind. Hadn't known either one of them, but it was a nice contact.

Of course it sent me to the garage to haul down that extra-heavy box of annuals I keep for no good reason. Found her in the 1966 Wahina.

My high school journey was an odd one, since, owing to my dad's working for a defense contractor, I went to four of  'em in three years. Sophomore year was a split between San Lorenzo Valley, California and Andress HS, in Texas, junior was Knob Noster, Missouri, and senior year was another split, Knob Noster/Cheyenne East.  It made me stronger to do four schools, but it also stunk.  I don't even show up in the East annual, but at least my name is in the back. I think of it as a lemon/lemonade experience.

You can't appreciate how much things (read: people) change until you get out your old high school annual.   I've been privileged to find a few people from my schools with whom I was friends, but most of the people I knew in the past haven't given me a thought since the day I graduated--49 years ago today (May 20).  Even the gals I thought of as rather plain, well, they look a lot better through the lens of time.  I take that as an indicator as my being less arrogant or fearful as I was then.  I hope.  I should have been kinder, less  fearful.

When you don't stay in the town that you graduated in, and also owing to my curious streak, you give more thought to those you did know well, and are more diligent in searching out those you knew.  My good friend Berri lives in Tennessee, and in retirement shows up as an extra on the television series Memphis. Don, who was also my college roomate became an electrical engineer and now lives in a missile silo in Nebraska. A former girlfriend Susie resides in New Jersey, and there's gal in Texas I occasionally correspond with.   I could go on.

Like I said, I went to four schools in four states.  It wasn't a great way to do school, but it sure helped me to relate to people.  It was not so good because I was always the guy leaving, and when you're a teenager, being connected is very important. I'm also a "man without a country" in a school sense. There are few who remember me.  If I were to show up at a reunion at any one of those schools, it would be as a stranger among strangers.  Ah, well.

I remember when my dad went to his 50th high school reunion.  He graduated from Roosevelt High in Seattle in 1932. I remember hoping (as a guy in my mid-30's) that the old fossil would survive it.  He did, and now as I see my 50th year looming, it doesn't seem quite so daunting now as I perceived it was then.

Doubtless my kids think of me that way, though.