One month until my 65th high school reunion.

[Croney]

My husband and I will travel once again to the red state I'm from. In a class of 473, I am the youngest, at 81. Three-fourths of the class is gone, or unable to travel, or unwilling to make the effort.

I relish the irony of being a popular girl now, even if it's by attrition. This will probably be our last reunion; I'm looking forward to reliving the memories and then putting them to rest.

[sinkingfeeling]

1. I'm going to my 60th. in June.

[Croney]

3. That's impressive! Enjoy.

[Fla Dem]

2. Congratulations!

Glad you have a chance to chat with some former classmates. For some reason my class never had a reunion.

[wnylib]

4. My 60th is next year.

Last edited Mon Mar 30, 2026, 01:44 PM - Edit history (1)

Just under 700 in my graduating class.

The class has a website that tracks -- or tries to -- each person. Only a little over half are accounted for. Of those, several have passed away. Their obits on the site reveal some surprising turns their lives took from who they were in school.

One of the least religious and most irreverent guys became an Eastern Orthodox priest and then a bishop. A bright, rebellious guy who opposed war and introduced me to the music of Pete Seeger and the Guthries wanted to major in music. He left college after one semester, was drafted to Vietnam, then went to veterinary school. He had a vet practice in CA and developed a new veterinary med.

Three women that I went to school with from K-12 and who are all still alive became exactly what they said they wanted to be -- a nurse, a teacher, and a doctor.

[Croney]

5. That's an impressive website!

What we have is a dormant Facebook page, with three admins including me, and an email list for announcing deaths and linking obituaries. Pretty frequent emails lately.

[wnylib]

6. It's a massive site that covers all the graduating classes

over the years. So I can look up people from previous and later years, too. Except....The school no longer exists. The building was condemned about 10 years ago.

Somebody-- don't know who -- paid up all the funding for several years. A grant, I think. The administrators focus on various former students for a few months, then move on to another one. People can post photos and leave messages to update others on what they are doing.

It's amazing how different some look from their senior pics on the site and their updated photos. Others look basically the same but with updated hair and clothes.

[Aristus]

7. My 40th is coming up.

It occurred to me that most of the deaths of our classmates from 1986 happened within just a few years after graduation. Including two drownings. I wondered for a while if maybe we were cursed, or something.

[Croney]

8. Good thing the curse skipped over you.

😄

[NNadir]

9. I only made it to my tenth.

I was ddisappointed. Everyone was pretty much the same except for a kid everyone thought was a dork, who had become a wealthy attorney and showed up with a gorgeous elegant wife whereupon all of the onetime cool guys drolled as if they'd never left high school.

My 12th grade English teacher came too. He was the greatest teacher I ever had, since he was the first example of a polymath I'd ever known, who taught that knowledge was its own reward.

That made it a worthy exercise, I guess.

I have no idea if any of those people are alive or what they did with themselves.