High School glory days?

As I drove past the local High school tonight I noticed the sign had been changed to welcome the class reunion of the class of 1957. 50 years. It struck me funny for some reason.

High school is 4 years of our lives and 50 years later a group of people come together to relive old times and rehash their glory days, brag about their accomplishments or look up old sweethearts. Some have never left the area and others have left to create lives elsewhere but for this momentous occasion they flock back to the old gymnasium from far and wide.

Maybe I am odd but I really do not see the point. The friends I had back in high school are total strangers now. If I really cared about them and wanted to track them down I would not need to wait for a reunion to do it. And to be honest, the few old friends I have looked up or been located by over the years were no more the teenager I remembered than I am. I found it to be rather sad to see them old and gray or to hear that this one was dead, another was convicted of hit and run, one is now on the city council and so on.

We shared a few memories and went our separate ways with no desire on my part to rekindle the old friendships with these strangers. When our 25th reunion came along I had no desire to use my cherished vacation time revisiting the far distant past when there are current friends, family and grand kids I could use it visiting.

I have enjoyed conversations with strangers, getting to know them and learning about their hometowns. I have listened raptly as a 100 year old woman talked about history. I have laughed at the humor of a 10 year old child who stopped to visit me in the park because they like my dog. But I have no interest in reliving my own past with a lot of people that are trying too hard to recapture the tumultuous teen years.

Don't get me wrong, I had a good time in High school. I sometimes think of something that happened back then and it has made for a nice anecdote in a conversation. But there is so much more to my life, so many more current happenings and people that to spend an entire week end trying to relive those 4 years seems somehow empty and desperate.

So, I think I'll skip the 30th, 40th 50th, 60th reunions and just show up for the 75th to see who is the last man/woman standing....that should be interesting.