FiftyPlus Richmond -Time of my Life

The Time of My life Randy Fitzgerald

Cliques Crack After 15 Years
High School Reunions are No Longer Dreaded

I might be the world’s biggest proponent of high school reunions. I love ’em. I love ’em so much I go to one every year.
A few years back when the class in which Barb and I graduated met for its 45th reunion, we noticed that about 17 classmates had already gone to that great reunion in the sky. At that point it was decided that we would hold a mini-reunion every year, instead of waiting for the big 5-0.
So each year since then, 75 to 100 class members and spouses (and even our old principal, Ben Hurt, now in his 90s, along with his wife Maria) have met for a day-long picnic, jam session, songfest and photo op, along with a fair amount of catching up and gossip mongering. I love it.

Our gathering this year took place in mid-September. When you’re holding a meeting in Charlottesville in the fall, you have to be sure to pick a weekend when the Cavaliers are playing out of town. If you happen to hit the day of a home game, not only do you lose half of your attendees, but the ones that want to come can’t make it through traffic to get there.
But our “regulars” are hardy and devoted. Each year we have a number of the same folks (including at least half a dozen couples from Richmond), and then there’s also at least one person totally unexpected, someone none of us has seen for years.
This year’s surprise was a fellow named Jim Meem, who had arrived in town from his home in Australia, coincidentally on the very weekend of our picnic. Most of us hadn’t seen Jim since graduation, and we were delighted that he showed up in what someone termed “native Australian garb.”
“Which one is Jim?” Barb asked when we arrived.
“Well,” someone responded, “look around. He’s the only one here wearing knee-length Australian khaki bush shorts, black hose and very strange shoes.”

And, sure enough, there he was, and he looked great. Jim was one of the brains in our class—borderline brilliant, I would say—but here he was 48 years later, just one of the gang, full of stories about his five children, his ex-wives, his interesting job history and his current Hungarian girlfriend.
Oh, yes, I forgot to say before—when I was mentioning spouses who attend—that some members of our group are still in the dating game. I was sorry Jim’s lady friend could not make the trip with him, because there’s always a dearth of Hungarian beauties at these get-togethers.

Barb and I had arrived late, having had some things to take care of in Richmond that Saturday morning before we drove up. Not a soul had left before we arrived, and the party was going strong.
We checked on old Doug, who was immobilized by foot surgery and who had been seated in a prominent chair where all the new arrivals could greet him.
In our age group, there’s always somebody with an interesting new malady, and we all want to hear about it with the expectation that someday soon we may be laid up with a similar problem ourselves. Doug is mending nicely—thank you for asking.
After our usual barbecue and fried chicken lunch (there’s a salad tray for vegetarians like me), some of us broke out our guitars and banjos and the singers in the class gathered round, and we sang our way into dusk. I love these things.

If your high school is having class reunions and you’re not going, I’m willing to bet that you’re missing something, especially once you get past that dread 10th one.
At the 5th or the 10th, classmates still have all the liabilities they had in high school. Life has not yet proven to the ones who were in the good clique, the most popular ones, the smartest ones, the handsomest ones, that now it’s a whole new ballgame.
But by the 15th and thereafter, we’re all the same. And the older we get, the further we get from graduation, the more we’re all equals and friends, united as we age, no longer judging or critical or snide.
In that spirit, I can guarantee you I will continue to attend all these reunions, year after year, for as long as I continue to look better than everybody else in my class.

Randy Fitzgerald is chair of the English and journalism department at Virginia Union University. He is a former Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist and University of Richmond administrator. His blog is www.randyfitzgerald.blog.com.

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