The DU Lounge

Last edited Wed Jun 4, 2025, 01:45 AM - Edit history (1)

Anyway, the 10th was boring, but I still lived there at the time. I flew out for the 25th and 50th and they were terrific. The 60th is this September, but I am really reluctant to fly now that trump/muskrat have wrecked the FAA, and, well, neither of us wants to drive at night any more, and Honolulu has changed past recognition for me as far as navigation goes.

Whether anyone wants to go to their own or not depends on a lot of things. High school wasn’t a lot of fun for me for varied reasons, but on the upside I had quite a lovely boyfriend in my senior year, I had a small group of real friends, and though not socially at ease I was not actively persecuted. ( I mean, PE was a daily torment because of my eyesight and I was chosen last for every team along with the girl who had polio braces and the girl with palsy on half her body, but only one person in class was an asshole, and hell, I survived)

As it happens there were quite a few people I had been friendly with and they remembered me, which led to some very nice conversations at reunions. At the 50th I was talking to a guy whose face I remembered well, but my muscle memory kept telling me he used to be shorter than my 5’4” but now I was looking several inches higher. I finally asked him and he said he had grown 6+ inches after age 21. When I said that was a pretty late growth-spurt he said something I’ll never forget: There were 7 kids at home, and when he joined the military it was the first time in his life he’d ever been able to eat all he wanted.

Which brings up this unfortunate story:

Very long ago my sis and I found out that our mother’s 60th high school reunion was coming up, and without considering who she really was we got excited and urged her to go. Mom had not one cherished memory of her school years, unless it was the time she won a statewide singing competition and got a scholarship as a soloist. She did remember being actively persecuted — like the tack that got stuck hard in her kneecap because in parochial school they all had to kneel on their chairs for prayers at the beginning of the school day, and some jerk sabotaged her chair. At secular high school she felt poor and also nerdy. And so on. College was liberating, but the professors were terrifying, college is where she made real friends, and the life of the mind was everything — she ended up without enough money to graduate, but even so, Holy Grail and all that.

Sis and I really, really should not have urged her to go back to high school for any reason. She carried her issues with her, and I can just see the chip on her shoulder. She did not have fun — and I am pretty sure she wasn’t anybody’s little ray of sunshine either.

So there it is. IF you have some nice memories and are in touch with even a few old pals, go and chances are you’ll have a good time. Use your judgement. IF like my mom, you have metaphorical scars that still bleed at a touch, stay the hell away and don’t put yourself through it.