What really matters clear at class reunion

It’s either a free-spirited high school class, or a math-challenged one, that holds a 36th year reunion. After a weekend glimpse as a bystander at the Mead High School Class of ‘68, I’ll vote for the former.

I have never attended a high school reunion before, but since my classmates are back in Ohio, this was an opportunity to attend one “vicariously” without worrying about unreturned library books or the pressure of hair issues, more or less. As in who has “more” to my “less”? I’m not holding four aces there!

The Class of ‘68 was part of a great social upheaval. During their formative years, they ushered in color TV and civil rights. As youthful parents they bought the first disposable diapers and eight-tracks. Microwaves and personal computers would further change their lifestyles in later years. The Dick Tracy wrist radios of their youth became reality beyond their wildest juvenile imaginations. Even their high school, once thought of as Hicksville, has undergone a metamorphosis into a symbol of the latest technology and advances in education

After accepting my friend’s invitation to attend, I discovered I had a few ill-conceived preconceptions about high school reunions. Surely there were going to be lost high school flames reuniting, and like August-dried dead forest grasses, they would be one spark away from a raging, runaway inferno swallowing all convention in their path. I also expected snobs, driving motor homes and towing accountants in an ostentatious show of wealth for all their classmates to see.

Well, if there were any reunited sweethearts there, the fire danger was greatly diminished because everyone was standing in the old swimming hole along the Little Spokane, the reunion site. I heard very few words about jobs and none about businesses, homes — motorized or not — or any other such trappings.

What I did hear surprised me. The talk was tattoos and knee replacement surgeries. New “artwork” adorned some of the attendees (can’t you just picture the teenager at home turning the table on the parent to ask “just what got into you?”) And the general consensus was that a Green Bay Packer logo permanently attached to a lower limb was infinitely more painful than a knee remodel.

There were years of school annuals, some dating back to junior high days … geeks and the gorgeous permanently captured in print but now homogenized by the passing of time. Prom queens and star quarterbacks eventually leave the stage and become just Jane or just Joe at a reunion. That shy girl who never said much could now find her voice and stand in front of a crowd and speak and make others laugh. Some things haven’t changed though.

This is the class that watched Vietnam war clips presented by Cronkite, while eating pork chops as a family. This is the class that lost two of its own to that war. Sadly, Kenny Schimanski and Craig Hemphill won’t be attending any more reunions. I wonder if the class still thinks about their sacrifice? Are they still grateful? Are they lucky to have lost only two? A same era class in Texas lost 10. But to the family of the 10, or the two, maybe there is no luck involved. Just tragedy. There is no talk about Iraq, or grandchildren going off to war. Maybe the children of the ‘60s are the first generation to truly make peace with the inevitability of war, that it will always be with us and we have to continue to live our lives.

There was a golf outing scheduled the next day. I took note that only one of the participants pulled his cart in the over 90-degree heat of Deer Park. Is that wisdom or bad backs? And as everyone gathered around for that last refreshment, something else struck me, clear as a school bell. When anyone talked, everyone stopped and listened. There was tact. There was no gossiping. There was a gentle, mannered way about everyone’s behavior that said what mattered here was the very fact they were all gathered here as family. The Great Teacher — time — hadn’t misplaced any lessons on what really matters in life.

At a high school graduation speech once, there was the admonition that “It doesn’t matter as much how many breaths you take in this life, it matters most how many times this life takes your breath away.” Maybe that’s so, but to be able to sit back and breathe quietly and contentedly with lifelong friends isn’t so bad either.