My 40th high school reunion is coming up next year.
That means two things—I get to hear (and tell) stories from the good old days, and I’m really getting old.
I missed my other reunions—combinations of finances (usually lack thereof) and those “life things” got in the way. This time, I am going to do my best to attend. In the build-up, my nostalgia rush—bad enough of late when left on its own—went into overdrive, and the memories came pouring back. What can I say? I guess that’s why I like history, too—I like looking back and analyzing the past.
So, here’s to old friends!
Somebody once made a comment about what it means to be friends, and how you can’t truly be friends if you never interacted in person. And they probably have a point, but let’s consider what Messrs. Merriam and Webster have to say.
Friend: One attached to another by affection or esteem: “She's my best friend.”
So, the definition seems to indeed indicate that yes, friends should be closely associated. But then there is this word listed as an alternate:
Acquaintance, or “a person whom one knows but who is not a particularly close friend.”
So, in the “according to Hoyle” sense, one can be a friend without being particularly close.
One of our reunion organizers has made the case that we are family. I have agreed and said we share a kinship, or fellowship. So, let’s flip through the ol’ dictionary again…
Family: A group of people united by certain convictions or a common affiliation.
Affiliate: Associate as a member (of a group).
Fellowship: Community of interest, activity, feeling, or experience.
And there we have it. We share a fellowship. We are associated as a member of our high school class, which is a community of interest.
We are indeed a family. But we didn’t need to go through all those research steps to figure that out. I did the research because I enjoy it. I’m weird. I admit it.
Of course, high school classmates aren’t the only extended families we have. There are fraternities, sororities, military and police and fire units, trade groups, unions, civic organizations, Scouts, religious groups, and others.
But a high school family is special to most of us because of when it happens in our lives. We are close to each other at what can be an awkward time in our lives, that time of transition from child to teenager to young adult. Piled on top of the usual adolescent angst is the societal expectations placed upon us—this is the time when we are supposed to figure out what we want to be when we grow up, and this time it is for real. Or so we’re told. Like several others among my classmates, I am still trying to answer that age-old question.
Add into the mix that wonderful time in every child’s life when we experience that first girlfriend-boyfriend relationship, and first kiss, and possibly a first intimate encounter, and boy, we had a lot on our plates. We literally watched each other grow up and navigated adolescence together. Some experienced broken hearts as they found, and then lost, what was thought to be true love—somehow they managed to pick up the pieces and move on. Others found soul mates sitting in the desk in the next row, and have been married for many years.
My extended family contains people from all walks of life: doctors and other medical professionals; lawyers, judges and other legal professionals; civil and military veterans; musicians, actors, and other entertainment professionals who worked to bring us the music, movies, and television shows that entertain us; service industry hosts, waiters, chefs, and salespeople who provide the food we eat, the stuff we buy, and manage the places we go when we want to get away; and any number of blue-collar “nine-to-five ham-and-eggers” who keep the world moving. They are moms and dads, aunts and uncles, stepmoms and stepdads, and grandmoms and granddads.
Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief,
Or what about a cowboy, policeman, jailer, engine driver, or a pirate chief?
Or what about a ploughman or a keeper at the zoo,
Or what about a circus man who lets the people through?
Or the man who takes the pennies on the roundabouts and swings,
Or the man who plays the organ or the other man who sings?
Or what about the rabbit man with rabbits in his pockets
And what about a rocket man who's always making rockets?
Oh it's such a lot of things there are and such a lot to be
That there's always lots of cherries on my little cherry tree.
-- Now We Are Six, A.A. Milne
Alas, my extended family has also mourned the loss of too many of our brothers and sisters. Whether by disease, malfeasance, or (sadly) by their own hand, each loss was profoundly felt, and they are missed.
We celebrate together, we mourn together, and we are, at times, dysfunctional. We also have our fair share of crazy aunts and uncles.
If that’s not family, I don’t know what is. And I can’t wait to reconnect with my long lost family.
***** ***** *****
For my new readers, I hope you take some time to have a look around. Admittedly, the blog that I started in late 2010 as a cornucopia of various topics has fallen into an aviation research and scale modeling rut lately, but, as Samuel L. Jackson’s Jules Winnfield says to the guy robbing the diner in “Pulp Fiction”, “I’m tryin’ Ringo. I’m tryin’ *real* hard…”
If you like what you’ve read, there are several teachers to thank, starting with my dear departed mother—she was the Latin teacher at St. Thomas Aquinas High School for 30+ years between 1980 and 2012. I inherited the liberal arts part of my personality from her.
You can then add Ralph Bucci, Sam Rogers, Hope Reinfeld, and Gloria Warrick, my English teachers at Boyd H. Anderson High School. They taught me everything I know about grammar, spelling, sentence structure, and proper creative and technical writing. A hat tip also goes to the late Cecilia Carballo, my high school Spanish teacher, who saw that I had some aptitude in several other languages, most of which I am sadly no longer fluent. She became a special mentor to me in school, and I was saddened to hear of her passing several years ago.
I am also guided by my best critic, a college-level journalism professor and book author who also happens to be my wife. While she doesn’t proof everything I write, I see her cringe when I break some obscure style rule. When she does, I always imagine her as Miss Shields, the teacher in “A Christmas Story”:
“You call this a paragraph? Margins! Margins! ‘F’!
My life's work, down the drain.
A semicolon, you dolt! A period! ‘F’!
Oh, I should weep if I have to read one more ‘F’!”
Incidentally, she’s seen this piece, and she gave me an A++++++++++++. So I have that going for me--which is nice. I already had the Red Ryder air rifle…
The research thing comes naturally to me—I was an inquisitive child—but I was pointed in the right direction by a good many enthusiasts, historians, and researchers whose skills far outstrip mine. I got my technical aptitude from my dad, and my technical writing skills come as a by-product of 30+ years working on corporate jets as an avionics technician. It’s also what I get paid to do these days.
For my regulars, rest assured that I’ll continue to do regular updates on my normal irregular schedule. Keep checking back…
Thanks for reading, all of you. As always, be good to one another and look after each other. Until next time, I bid you Peace.
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