RIGGS HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 1963
What I Learned at My 50th High School Reunion
SUMMARY
We graduated in May of 1958. We were all so glad for that long-anticipated event to arrive. Once it was over we quickly scattered in our own directions without a thought to the fact that we were seeing some of our classmates for the last time.
We had no way of knowing that in a few short years several of our classmates would be gone or that by the 50th anniversary of our graduation, over one third of our members would no longer be living.
There is a reason only older people attend class reunions. They know.
As I see it, here are the lessons they begin to learn and the lessons that were firmly entrenched by the time of our 50th reunion.
1) Old friendships are pure gold.
2) People are precious.
3) Life is short.
4) There's a lot to be said for stability.
5) The high school you is not the real you.
6) To your class, you'll always look like you did a half-century ago.
7) By now, you are beyond showing off. You no longer have anything to prove.
8) The peer pressure is gone now. Be yourself.
9) These class members are pretty special people, and were then, too.
10) It's never too late to repair a relationship, to ask for forgiveness, or to thank someone.
What I Learned at My 50th High School Reunion
by Joe McKeever
SUMMARY
(Full Article Follows This Summary)
We graduated in May of 1958. We were all so glad for that long-anticipated event to arrive. Once it was over we quickly scattered in our own directions without a thought to the fact that we were seeing some of our classmates for the last time.
We had no way of knowing that in a few short years several of our classmates would be gone or that by the 50th anniversary of our graduation, over one third of our members would no longer be living.
There is a reason only older people attend class reunions. They know.
As I see it, here are the lessons they begin to learn and the lessons that were firmly entrenched by the time of our 50th reunion.
1) Old friendships are pure gold.
2) People are precious.
3) Life is short.
4) There's a lot to be said for stability.
5) The high school you is not the real you.
6) To your class, you'll always look like you did a half-century ago.
7) By now, you are beyond showing off. You no longer have anything to prove.
8) The peer pressure is gone now. Be yourself.
9) These class members are pretty special people, and were then, too.
10) It's never too late to repair a relationship, to ask for forgiveness, or to thank someone.
(FULL ARTICLE)
RIGGS HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 1963
What I Learned at My 50th
High School Reunion
by Joe McKeever
We graduated in May of 1958. We
were all so glad for that long-anticipated event to arrive. Once it was over we quickly scattered in
our own directions without a thought to the fact that we were seeing
some of our classmates for the last time.
We had no way of knowing
that in a few short years several of our classmates would be gone or that by the
50th anniversary of our graduation, over one third of our members would no longer be living.
There is a reason only older
people attend class reunions. They know.
The recent graduates are still in college somewhere or serving Uncle Sam or
trying to get established in low-paying jobs and can't afford the trip back home. But mostly, they don't come to reunions because
they haven't figured it out yet.
- They think they have forever.
- They think of the rest of us as oldsters, like ancient relics of a previous civilization that has no bearing on the world they live in today.
- They have no idea that the time between now and their fiftieth will seem like weeks.
- They will still be looking upon themselves as the younger generation when suddenly their 20th reunion will be announced in the newspapers.
If they're like me, the 20th will be the first reunion they attend. And, if they're really like me, they will open
the door and look in that room, taking in all the bald heads and unfamiliar faces,
and decide this can't be my class and walk on down the hall looking for the real
class. They will soon realize there is no
one else in the building and that this is their class. That's the moment when they start to grow up. Their real education begins then. Everything up to that moment has been prep school. Today is the first day of class. This school does not let out for the rest of their
lives.
As I see it, here are the
lessons they begin to learn and the lessons that were firmly entrenched by
the time of our 50th reunion.
1) Old
friendships are pure gold.
Lynn Pope and I shared one of those old-fashioned
double desks at Poplar Springs Elementary in the school term of 1951-52. A two-room affair run by a husband and wife, three
grades in each room, this school had changed very little from the days my mother
attended its predecessor a mile down the highway. Next year, Lynn and I moved on to Double Springs
for junior high. He is the sole classmate
with whom I shared seven years of schooling.
We thought of Double Springs as "town." We were rural and most of the others in the class
were "town," as though of another species. The truth is most of our class members were bused
in from outlying areas of the county the same way we were. There were 100 of us at the start of the seventh
grade. Six years later, we were just over
50 strong, the 50th graduating class of that school.
If you can imagine having 150 or more brothers and sisters, that was us. We did
just exactly what siblings do too -- we fought and argued, we laughed and went on
trips and played games, we teased and cried and worked alongside each other. Over the years, we came to learn that these are
the dearest people on the earth.
2) People
are precious.
"At the end of your life, the only things that will matter are
faith, family, and friends." Amen!
When Winona Guthrie died
some 25 years ago, even though we were never what you would
call close friends, I made the drive to Birmingham for her funeral. I just thought someone from her high school
class ought to be there. I was the
only one, as I recall.
To my surprise, her mother said,
"She often spoke of you."
I was touched, and so
glad I had come.
3) Life
is short.
Out of all the teachers who invested their lives in us, only two attended our 50th
reunion. Loyce Whitson and Cleta
Steele (can't recall her "new" last name) taught us science and proper
English usage. Or tried to. Mostly, what I recall is how much they treasured
us. Not an easy task, granted. They saw through the swagger and bluster, the
shallowness and immaturity, and loved us the way we were.
Eighteen of our class have
died.
Donald Howell--we called him "Doodle"--was the life of any party and kept us
all in stitches. In the senior annual where
group photos of various clubs are found, Doodle is the one surreptitiously giving
the finger to the photographer. He was
the first to go, speeding in his old '56 Ford, hitting a patch of gravel and
losing control.
Ila Faye Richardson was the last, so far. Quiet, shy, and sweet. In recent years, she sent Christmas cards to class
members from her home in Indiana. I
didn't know she had died until I went to the class reunion.
4) There's a lot to
be said for stability.
My friend Bryan Harris attended more than 40 schools, as his family moved
around Texas. My 3 Metairie grandchildren
live in the only house they've ever known, but they have attended 3 elementary schools,
and 4, if we count the time their mother home-schooled them. But, from the 7th through the 12th
grades, my education took place in one building with some of the same
teachers all the way through.
At the time, we probably thought it was boring, attending the same school
all the time. Some of it was, but that's
good too. There's a lot to be said
for sameness.
5) The
high school you is not the real you.
You're still in embryo in
high school; in spite of the drivers license and your
afternoon job and the responsibilities you are beginning to assume. The senior pictures are not the real you. Those are the pre-you. You're still becoming who you will be. You were--and still are, incidentally--a
work in progress.
Harold Brownlow was a goof-off
in high school. Tall
and slim and handsome--over the years, every time Louis L'Amour would describe his
hero in a western novel, to my mind he was talking about Harold. Brownlow was popular with the girls, cool in every
way a high school boy wants to be cool, and completely uninterested in anything
happening in the classroom. The 1st
reunion he attended was the 50th. He flew in from Indonesia. Still tall, still slim, and now sporting a white
beard down to his chest. What had he been
doing all those years? Working in agriculture
development all over the world. He
became somebody who did something significant with his life. Congratulations, friend.
Pity the person who gets "frozen"
in high school and never grows beyond it.
I've run into a lot of people over the years who say they don't go back to
their high school reunions because
"I'm not the same person I was then."
I tell them,
"No one is. We've
all changed. Go back and let them
see what a super person you are. Surprise
your teachers. Show that girl who rejected
you what a foolish thing she did!"
6) To
your class, you'll always look like you did a half-century ago.
I said to the wife of one of the alums,
"I know you look around at all these 68-year-olds and think
how old we look, but the truth is, you're the only one who sees that. The rest of us see each other as teenagers
when we played Elvis records in the school gym for a sock hop, and cheered the football
team and went on field trips. To us, everyone
in this room is a teenager."
7) By
now, you are beyond showing off. You
no longer have anything to prove.
Before leaving home for the reunion, I put my car in the shop and asked the
mechanic to check it out thoroughly. It's
a 2005 Camry with 105,000 miles on it and has never given me a bit of trouble. But, I knew it was past time for a complete
checkup. Then I rented a car. When the rental guy drove it around front, it
turned out to be a BMW "sport station" with 700 miles. We're talking new and we're talking impressive. I joked that anyone going to his high school reunion
needs to rent a BMW to show off a little.
The fact is, no one even sees what kind of car you drive to these things. And, I guarantee you, no one cares. Cadillac Escalade or 1949 pickup truck. No one cares.
That was high school stuff, trying to impress your peers
with a car. No more. The guy driving the expensive car can have it
rented or leased and therefore it doesn't prove a thing. The guy driving the old clunker may be showing
he finds better things to do with his money than invest in cars which depreciate
faster than white bread.
8) The
peer pressure is gone now. Be yourself.
Our class members long ago often said or did things because of peer
pressure. As we’ve matured, we
realize that peer pressure isn’t important. The most important thing is to be yourself
and be comfortable with who you are.
9) These
class members are pretty special people, and were then, too.
Our class talks about Andy Davis. He
was a coach and English teacher for our first years, then principal for the final
2 or 3 years. A tough exterior with a gruff
voice, but basically a nice guy. He was
wrong on one thing I recall so well.
I said to him once,
"Mr. Davis, why can't our school have student body officers the
way other high schools do?"
It seemed a logical request. He said,
"Because you all do not deserve it."
I really think he saw us as the rural unsophisticated kids we were,
but could not see beyond that.
After we graduated and went
off to college, several of our classmates were promptly elected to student government
positions. That
should have told him something. He's no longer
with us now, but in those days, I found myself hoping the local paper--that
would be the Northwest Alabamian out of Haleyville--ran those little announcements
heralding our college achievements. Just
so he would know.
10) It's
never too late to repair a relationship, to ask for forgiveness, or
to thank someone.
At our 40th class
reunion, I was so pleased to see Dixie. She and her husband had driven a long distance
to be there for what was her first reunion, I think.
We were in a restaurant and I called her off to one side.
"There's something I need to talk to you about."
She was puzzled. I said,
"When we were in the 7th grade, I stole some money
from you."
She said,
"No. Not you. Anyone on earth, but not you."
I explained how it had happened. The
first few weeks of the 7th grade while I was getting my bearings, I ran
with a certain older boy who failed year after year, but was still in my class. We even played hookey some afternoons. One day, he pointed out the way Dixie had left
her billfold on top of her books underneath the desk.
"If you will reach under there and lay the billfold on that empty
desk behind her, she'll walk out and leave it.
Later, I'll divide the money with you."
I did it. That afternoon, he handed
me 3 or 4 dollars. I told that to Dixie and
said,
"You would think I would have made it up to you a long time ago,
and I'm ashamed I didn't. I want you
to forgive me....and I want you to take this 20 dollar bill."
She said,
"I don't recall any of this.
Of course, I'll forgive you, but I am not taking your money!"
I said,
"You have to take it so I'll have peace about it."
She said,
"My husband and I are active in a Christian ministry, so I'll
put it in that."
A couple of weeks later, I received a note from her that she had
bought a half dozen Bibles with that twenty.
When you’re 18 years old, anything seems possible.
Maybe you’ll cure
cancer or write a bestseller or become a star or make a million—if only you can
get into the right college.
When you're 68 years old, you've gained a certain
amount of wisdom just by traveling over the bumps in the
road. These are the lessons we learned
from all these years, and the ones the younger folks are still hammering out.
When you're 68 years old, you know how your life will turn out, and for so many,
that 50 years after graduation brought loss and heartbreak, illness and disabilities,
but in spite of that, almost every one of the classmates I talked to said,
"I
have been truly blessed", or a
similar sentiment.
So, lastly, why is my affection for all these people so extravagant,
what are some reasons nobody forgets their high school years?
This was .................... the place I grew up.
This is ....................... my spiritual home.
This was ................... the place where I was safe.
This is ....................... the ground where the seeds of later
life got sowed.
These were ............... the people who were the
anvils upon which I forged who I was and what I would become.
These people were ... the loving teachers of all the
really important lessons of living and of life.
To forget your high school years is to amputate a major part of you. It isn't over, of course. The members of my class, they teach
me yet.
They teach me now of ... the importance ... of holding life in reverence.
They teach me ............... the importance ... of enjoying the moment
and
living well in it.
They teach me ............... the strength ....... of humility,
the futility ........ of pride, and
the emptiness ... of achieving money
and power and status
at the price of soul.
And most of all,
they teach me ................ gratitude.
God bless them all.
Go to this link to see more great ways to enjoy a 50th Class
Reunion
_____________________________________________________________________
What I Learned at My 50th
High School Reunion
(by Joe McKeever)
SUMMARY
We graduated in May of 1958. We
were all so glad for that long-anticipated event to arrive. Once it was over we quickly scattered in
our own directions without a thought to the fact that we were seeing
some of our classmates for the last time.
We had no way of knowing
that in a few short years several of our classmates would be gone or that by
the 50th anniversary of our graduation, over one third of our members would no longer be living.
There is a reason only older
people attend class reunions. They know.
As I see it, here are the
lessons they begin to learn and the lessons that were firmly entrenched by
the time of our 50th reunion.
1) Old friendships are pure gold.
2) People are
precious.
3) Life is
short.
4)
There's a
lot to be
said for stability.
5) The high
school you is
not the real
you.
6) To your
class, you'll always look like you
did a half-century ago.
7) By now,
you are beyond showing off. You no
longer have anything to prove.
8) The peer
pressure is gone
now. Be
yourself.
9) These class
members are pretty special people, and
were then, too.
10) It's never
too late to
repair a relationship, to
ask for forgiveness, or
to thank someone.
Presented by
James Eugene Barbush
Barbush Enterprises
(717) 514-55492021
Blue Mountain Parkway
Harrisburg, PA 17112
