A lot of water has gone under the bridge since I was in high school--50 years worth of water. This last Saturday I attended my 50 Year Class Reunion, it was a very strange experience. There were so many “strangers” walking around with name tags sporting names I recognized from my graduating class, but they all had unfamiliar faces and bodies. I felt like going up to them and saying, “I knew a person in high school with the exact same name.” But honestly, there were many there who were instantly recognizable.
As you can see from the photos above, me in 1965, and me in 2015, time can do a number on a person’s appearance in 50 years.
I confess that there were one or two people that seemed to know me, but I didn’t recognize at all, fortunately I was saved by their name tags, and was able to quickly restore my composure. Given time to study their faces, I could usually re-construct the high school person they once were, but it was so bizarre. Of course everyone (except those that still hung around together) was at the same disadvantage.
I had attended a couple of other high school reunions and had been disappointed because my really close high school friends had not shown up. This time, being the “Big 5-0”, a lot more people attended including some close friends. They gave me an anchor point to return to when things got too strange while mingling amongst so many others I didn’t recognize. People would mention a name of someone they had talked to and I would ask them to point them out because I couldn’t “see” them.
We had a big high school class, over 500 and it was sobering to hear that over 100 of my classmates had died in the intervening years, including several really close friends. Since our class was so large, there were certainly many I didn’t know, but happily, I was able to re-acquaint myself with a lot of old acquaintances I hadn’t seen for decades.
I am blogging again at my website: www.davidmarchant.ca
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