Do you attend or not? I just got a heads up that the high school my husband graduated from is planning their 40th class reunion this October. Hubs graduated from a small high school where everyone knew everyone else and 95% of them married within that community. We went to his 15th, 20th, and 25th and basically even though I was introduced and stood by my husband's side, I was not acknowledged nor made to feel welcome in the slightest. As soon as they heard I had not attended "their school", I became the tablecloth. There have been reunions since and he did go to one, figuring that only classmates would be there (that is what the invitation said), but he was wrong and spouses were invited if they attended his school. Well, that left him as the only one without a date. So he has not gone to any others. They are planning an entire 3 day weekend for the 40th. I don't know if we are going or not. Maybe I will get a headache. I actually have not met a snottier bunch of people in my life.
On the other hand, I attended a huge high school in which I was one of 660. I attended my own 10 year reunion but have not been to another since. I didn't know many people in my class. We had 2 high schools - one for freshman and sophomores and another for juniors and seniors. For my 1st 2 years of high school, I was in band which meant band members had classes at the high school where the juniors and seniors went. After lunch the band members that were in advanced classes stayed at that high school while the others were transported by bus back to the freshman and sophomore high school to mingle with their class for the rest of the day. My junior year was spent with the seniors (we were on split shifts due to space) and once again the only class members I saw were band members. My senior year I elected to do the work program so I was only at school for 2 hours per day, then attended college classes for another 2 hours, then worked for 8 hours. I was never a part of my class therefore, unless they were band members, I hardly knew anyone else.
At our 10 year reunion, a couple of band friends that I used to hang around with actually left the reunion (none of us knew anyone) and went to a bar and had our own reunion. The idea was born that night to organize a band reunion encompassing the years our band director was at our school (he had recently retired after over 40 years of directing). We held the band reunion a year later and we actually drew over 60% of band members and their families for a huge picnic from the years 1933 through 1980. I was in charge of it and we went through yearbooks to designate a member of each class to head up finding the band members from their year. With a lot of help, we were able to do huge raffles and had the whole picnic sponsored free of charge. We had a blast! Those were the kids who we knew. Kids from all years, not just the year we graduated. They meant more to me than any other kid in my school.
I have never attended another reunion from my class. I just don't know anyone. I figure that those I have kept in touch with were the ones I wanted to anyway so why should I fork out money to see people I barely knew then, let alone now.
I was going through the statistics on how many classmates actually attend a class reunion and was shocked that the numbers were only in the range of 20-30%. So curiously, I went back to see who were those who attended. They were from the following categories: 1. the cool kids in the 'in' crowd who want to re-live their youth and once again be where they felt they were on top of the world, 2. the kids who wanted to brag about how great their life is now, 3. the curious who wanted to see how the handsome and former prom queens fared over the years, 4. the kids who are now single and want to see if they can snag and hook up with someone, and 5. the nerds who want to show everyone how far they have come. Pretty sad I felt.
I actually like who I am now. Why would one ever want to go back and re-live their teen years? Especially if you were the geek who had a father as a teacher at the same school? Yeah, not my cup of tea.
Now band trip memories.....bring huge smiles to my face! Those were really good memories.
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