Last Saturday, Carol and I attended the 60th reunion of the Mainland Senior High School Class of 1966 in Daytona Beach. Hard to believe, but that’s part of what being 78 is about.  One can’t attend a 60th high school reunion without being about that old!

A classmate hosted the gathering in her barn and surrounding yard. The weather couldn’t have been better. There were perhaps 100 people there, including spouses and friends. The gathering began in the late morning and lasted until about six. Most folks hung around to visit, eat, reflect and visit some more.

Sixty years gives people a fair amount to talk about.

Leaving Early and Coming Back

My connection with my high school class was a little unusual. I left for college a year before we graduated.

The summer after my junior year, I attended an early admissions program at Stetson University and earned nine hours of college credit. I enrolled as a full-time student in the fall of 1965. By the time I attended my high school graduation in May 1966, I had accumulated 48 hours of college credit.

I was 18 and already the equivalent of a second-semester college sophomore. That first college year also brought my mother’s untimely passing. There was a great deal happening while most of my classmates were completing their senior year.

I graduated from Stetson in 1968, went on to graduate school and then served in the Army near Nuremberg, Germany. After returning to the United States in early 1975, my then wife, our new daughter and I moved to Memphis. Our daughter had been born on Christmas Day 1974 at the Nuremberg Army Hospital.

By then, high school was a distant memory.

But I didn’t forget. I attended our 10th reunion, our first, and every five-year reunion through the 45th. I missed the 50th because of business travel. It is wonderful to be in a class where a dedicated group keeps opportunities to get together coming.

Our class had more than 600 members. There were many people I didn’t know, including Carol. We graduated in the same class without knowing each other. I certainly had no idea then that we would attend our 60th reunion together.

There are some things an 18-year-old simply cannot anticipate.

Many of our classmates have passed. We remember them at each reunion, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to spend time with those who can still come.

Three Conversations

It was nice to see classmates on Saturday, both those I knew and those I still know mostly by recognition. Over the years, I have also gotten to know people I barely knew in school. The opportunity to make a friend doesn’t expire at graduation.

I had three particularly meaningful conversations with old friends.

One was with a classmate who later became a business associate. I was able to tell him that a client he referred to me more than 25 years ago is still an active client. He didn’t know that. It was a pleasure to let him know and to express my appreciation once more.

Another was with a friend who had a successful career with a large corporation and is now retired. Carol and I had dinner with him and his wife in South Florida a year or so ago. I always liked him, but we never had much opportunity to get closer in high school. It was good to have time together again.

The third was with a friend whose father’s business was one door away from my father’s business. We both “worked” at our fathers’ businesses as kids. That gave us a special connection, at least in my mind. There is something special about talking with someone who remembers a part of your life that so few people around you now ever knew.

It was wonderful to talk, to reminisce a bit, and just to see them.

That last part matters. We didn’t need a particular reason for a conversation beyond being there together. After sixty years, that was reason enough.

I’m grateful to the classmate who hosted us and to those who helped bring everyone together. Someone has to make these gatherings happen. The rest of us get to enjoy what their efforts make possible.

Another Birthday Ahead

I’m writing this before Carol and I leave for a week in Memphis and my granddaughter’s 16th birthday celebration.

That puts Saturday’s reunion into perspective. I was only two years older than she is now when I graduated from high school. At her age, I couldn’t have imagined most of what lay ahead of me. College, graduate school, the Army, Memphis, a family and a business were still unfolding or somewhere in the future.

Even with a head start in college, I had a great deal left to learn. I still do.

My granddaughter will have her own experiences and follow her own path. I hope that, sixty years from her graduation, she will have opportunities to sit with old friends and find pleasure in simply being together.

For now, I’m grateful that I could spend a beautiful Saturday with classmates whose lives have overlapped mine for so long. And I’m grateful that this coming week includes time with family and a granddaughter turning 16.

There is more living to do. We have a birthday to celebrate.

As always, be well, and age gratefully,

Chris

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