High School Reunion!

This weekend I took a road trip from Austin to Fort Worth, Texas to attend my high school 35^th Reunion.  Arlington Heights High School, AHHS Seniors ’76 – Woo hoo!  It was dubbed a “mini-reunion” which means there was just one event – a gathering at a club on Saturday night, and mercifully there were no awards presented like “Most Successful” or “Least Changed,” no giant poster-sized senior pictures hanging from the ceiling, just some simple “Hello, My Name is…..” paper nametags to write on and, of course, live music outside on the club’s spacious patio. 



Arlington Heights High School, Fort Worth, Texas

Even though this reunion was slated as easy and casual, the prospect of seeing folks whom you haven’t seen in possibly decades still inspires quite the personal re-assessment, doesn’t it?  It’s like having company over who has never been to your home – you start seeing everything in a different light, and what seemed attractive and fine suddenly looks dingy and dated and you start a massive redecoration and spruce-up weeks before the guests are due to arrive.  

Yes, that’s what many of us do when we have an event like our high school reunion looming months in the future, isn’t it?  Suddenly we see ourselves with a new critical clarity – I mean, those people are our history!  They knew us “back when.”  It is at that moment of high school graduation that we are launched into the world of actually trying to make something of ourselves, and a reunion is the time to come back together and see how we all did! 

So when a reunion invitation arrives, for many of us the personal inventory begins in earnest – the dieting and working out are launched, the shopping for just the perfect flattering outfit, and the indulging in all the other beautifications available.   Because you see, one of the most coveted compliments at a high school reunion is, “You haven’t changed a bit,” which is code for, “You miraculously haven’t gained weight and you still look young and beautiful!”  There are several of my good friends who actually did receive this very commendation that night – and totally deserved it!  (And I can’t hate them because they are beautiful and genuine on the inside, too!)

But why do we do that – insist that we shouldn’t ever age or show the natural consequences of our sun worship during those carefree childhood days; that men in their 50’s should still have a full head of hair, that women who have given birth multiple times and even at this age possibly already have gone through “the change” should still retain their high school slimness and tone?   

And how much longer do we have to do this?  Can we relax when we reach 60?  Is 70 the magic age where we can just “be” and contentedly look our age?  My beautiful 80-year-old Mom answered this question inadvertently this weekend when she was self-consciously trying to cover her “wrinkles,” as if she still shouldn’t be showing those evidences of age yet…. 



So as I drove along on historic red brick Camp Bowie Boulevard on my way to the reunion site, I reflected about this phenomenon.   But I realized a lot of life happens in 35 years!  That is longer than we were ever IN school!  At our particular reunion there were already widows and widowers, women who have survived breast cancer, both men and women who have endured divorces, death of a parent, career triumphs and failures, and then the whole timeline of those who already have grandkids all the way to those who never married and never had any children. 

And so…..Saturday night at the Capital Bar in Fort Worth “Cowtown” Texas, the AHHS Bicentennial Seniors of ’76 mingled and melted together into a pleasant community of 50-ish adults, accepting one another, visiting with and enjoying each other, standing together on the foundation of shared roots.  People crossed the lines of the 1970’s cliques and friendship groups and greeted each other and got reacquainted (or actually met for the first time). 

Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another, be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble.  ~  1 Peter 3:8

One couple, Elizabeth and Joel, had just last weekend attended the reunion of rival Paschal High School, as Joel is an alum from that school.  That event was a shared spread of seniors from five years, 1973-1977.   Some of our Heights group had discussed how it might be fun to do the same, and just go ahead and meet every year rather than only on the monumental landmark years.  

Later Sunday night back in Austin, as Gary and I watched the DVD of the movie Twister and enjoyed his Father’s Day grilled T-bone steak, I had a revelation – if we had Arlington Heights joint reunions that included 1973-1977, there is one prominent student who would be included in the invitation list…….BILL PAXTON!  Yes, I scanned this senior picture of his from my own freshman yearbook.  Bill, would you come?

Monday morning in Austin as I lay back doing abdominal crunches on my mat in Jazzercise, I looked up to the gym ceiling and there were still some mylar balloons floating which had escaped at a recent graduation party for some 2011 Seniors.  A new crop!  The thought hit me – one day they will have their 35^th reunion, too. 

I wonder if they will all fly in spaceships.  Most will have acquired a few wrinkles and extra pounds by then, too.  But if they accept each other as well as the AHHS Seniors of ’76 do, they will be just fine. 

“People change.  We get better as we get older.”    ~  Polka-Dot’s words to Birdie Calvert in the movie Hope Floats.

Go Yellow Jackets!