You gotta be old to have 50 of anything...

Well, this month marked a milestone for Pam and me.  Both of us attended our 50th high school class reunions.  It was kinda a funny around here when I told my neighbors and my golf buddies that we were doing that -- they got a kick out of us saying it was our 50th.  Well, except for the neighbors, the rest of them had better check their calendars because their 50th will be coming up sooner than they think.  I know ours did.  When they would rag on me about getting old, I told them that we couldn't be getting old -- they still play our music (60s music) on the radio.

Pam's high school class was 438 or so students.  She went to the big high school in Zanesville.  My graduating class was somewhere around 90 brave souls.  And in case you're wondering, Pam was in the top 10% of her class, while I on the other hand had not realized any of my potential yet.  I told one of the members of my class that at West Point, there is a tradition that the lowest graduating cadet is paid a dollar by all the rest of the cadets at graduation (an old tradition).  I said that if that was a tradition at my high school, I probably could have made a car payment with my dollars.  Oh, well.  I guess it's not where you start that counts.

Pam's reunion dinner was held at the country club in Zanesville.  It was very nice and they had a little over a hundred class members there.  It was really good for us to get to talk to a lot of the old friends from those days.  They had lost a few to the Vietnam war, and others to cancers and other illnesses.  But those who were there looked to be in pretty good shape overall.

My reunion dinner was held at a classmate's house.  She and her husband have a big old two-story house that was built in the 1860s and sits above the Muskingum River.  It was really cool.  I expected U.S. Grant to come walking out of the kitchen at any time.  The dinner was catered and we ate on their lawn. It was very nice and the torches and old house set quite a nice mood for the evening.  Of our 90-some classmates, we have lost a little over 20 to various things -- war, cancer, other illnesses.  A couple of them had had strokes since the last reunion, but they got around real well and it was fun talking with them.  One of them, Gene, who was my best man at our wedding, is still farming and still hunts on his property.

The reunions also served as another opportunity for both of us to do other things.  Pam was able to visit some friends and go to breakfast with one of her old girl friends.  I was also able to get in 18 holes with my old Sergeant Major at the golf course we played as golf team members in high school.  When we paid our greens fees, the guy there asked if I had ever played here before.  I gave him a laugh when I told him that the last time I played this course was 50 years ago.

One thing that came out of both reunions was the idea that these reunions should be held a little more often now that we all are getting on in years.  I know the ones who still live in Zanesville are always running into others of the class and they see the ones they want to see regularly.  It's the ones who have moved away who would probably get the most out of that idea.  Those who went to my school (Rosecrans) have the parish picnic each year where there is an alumni tent for such gatherings.  We could go to that if we wanted.  I am not so sure there is anything like that for Pam's classes.  Perhaps something at the football homecoming,  maybe. 

Every parting gives a foretaste of death; every reunion a hint of the resurrection. (A. Schopenhauer)

Hooah

Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection. Arthur Schopenhauer
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/reunion.html

Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection. Arthur Schopenhauer
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/reunion.html