As a high school graduate, there was always the knowledge that there would be class reunions; time to reminisce and to catch up with old friends.  Some of us skipped the 5th reunion because it was just too close to graduation.  Then the tenth came and went as did the next few.

The 25th class reunion was quite an event.  It was a time to see how we all had done.  We were in our early 40’s, many of us had kids in their teens, and were working at jobs that, for some, had never been in our original flight plans.  Some key people had stopped coming because they believed themselves to be too successful.  Others just didn’t want to be reminded of their youth.

It was ten years later when Mother Nature’s aging genes started kicking in and not only did some of us begin to look like grandparents, some had already been grandparents for more than a decade. The other big thing that had begun to happen was the introduction of health challenges.  This topic comes under the category of “Reality bites.”

By the 40th high school reunion, it was evident who had made it in life, but this reunion played more like the script from the play, “The Same Time Next Year” because the “Made it” category could be measured in two very different dynamics; those who had financially made it and those who had emotionally made it.

As it turned out, several of my classmates literally did not have a pot to  . . . well you know the rest of that saying, but they were happy.  They were emotionally stable, had raised great families, and were living the dream.  Others, on the other hand, had burned through multiple marriages, had kids in trouble, and were miserably wealthy.

I’ll have to admit that there were a few who were really well off and really happy.  They had managed to grab onto a star while still keeping their feet firmly on the ground.  Some of those uber-successful classmates were not the ones who might have been predicted in high school, but they had found their way to the top legitimately.   (As far as I know, there were no mobsters.)

Obviously the number of friends who had moved onto the Rainbow Bridge or Neverland continued to rise each decade, so that by the 40th Reunion, Mr. Reeper had taken his toll on our already small class of a little more than 100 students. (Reality Bites Even Harder.)

As we continued to move through the decades, some of us held tightly onto the notion that we were still those 18 year old kids who had made up that original graduating class.  Of course, the love handles, grey, thinning hair, and bifocals betrayed us a little, but the personalities were the same.  Some of our classmates had aged gracefully.  Others had not.  But we mostly yakked young, and embraced our continued hipness.  (Is that still a functional word?)

This year, however, is officially a year that cannot be evaded, marginalized, or thrust under the legendary rug. This is the ultimate reunion year, the year that ends the singular reunion parties and pushes us into the all-encompassing ongoing geezer reunions.

This year is the 50th anniversary of our high school graduation. The Class of 1965 will have our last and final solo reunion before we are sucked up into that proverbial “everyone who is still alive reunion” where 85 year olds eat for free, that unending get-together prior to that big reunion in the sky.

I’d like to really get into the weeds with old friends at this event, and I’d like to find out what their lives were really like these past five decades. Of course it’s hard to accomplish all of that during the early bird special at the Fire Hall.

Happy 50th to the Class of 1965!