Tuesday, January 19, 2010

My 20 yr. H.S. reunion

This past weekend was the G.W. Hewlett High School, class of 1990, 20th year reunion. As Adam Sandler once said, "I did not attend this event". I really should have changed my schedule around to accommodate this but I let life get in the way of nostalgia. It's a shame, because I'm looking at the flood of pictures from attendees and it looked like such a great time. It would have been nice to have a beer or two with the crew and talk about old times. Some would say that putting on rose tinted glasses to look at one's past is a false feeling, but I truly believe that the class of 1990 was different. We were a small class (about 230), and at the time that I graduated, everyone knew everyone else. Maybe not like best friend's, but we all knew each other's names and at least something about each other's lives. We'd been together since 6th grade, some of us earlier and we lived in each other's neighborhoods. I have such vivid memories of everyone in the pictures I saw that it's almost criminal not to acknowledge the influence that we all had in each other's lives. But we did. It was a pretty tight knit group of us, and by the time we were seniors and had started to broaden our horizons in life, the usual labels and cliques that divided us during school started to fall apart. Nerds, jocks, beauty queens and drama kings all had something to share together. And they did again on Saturday.

At this point in the post, I was going to post the most personal memories I had of as many of my high school classmates as I could remember. But halfway into the first memory, I thought that it might be too personal, not for me but for the people I'm talking about. Maybe not everyone has the desire to see themselves in such a light, even though we're talking about events that happened 20+ years ago! So if you were G.W.H.S. class of 1990, and you want to know what memory I have of you, send me a note and I'll tell you. I can promise you that not a single memory puts anyone in a bad light (well, sometimes me).

I really loved my years in high school, though I wish I could go back and do it over again. What a difference that would make, no? But then again, it wouldn't be high school if we all could bring adult experiences to bear on those formative years.

To recap: You guys are great and I suck for not coming. Peace out.

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