By Mike Scinto
Appearing in Kettering-Oakwood Times and Times Community Newspapers
I just witnessed (and was part of) a living, breathing slice of America, at its best and worst. It was potentials realized and denied. I mourned for losses and celebrated accomplishments. I saw reflections of my youth I hadn’t seen in decades. I thought about how blessed I am and how we are so touched by those around us, especially in our youth. In case you haven’t figured it out, I attended my high school reunion this weekend. It was eye-opening and fun.
I attended numbers 10, 20 and 25 so it had been a good 15 years when I drug Kathy, kicking and screaming, to my 40th reunion for the Fairborn High School Class of 1970. And I can certainly understand why she didn’t want to go. While we’ve been married 35 years (August 9th-see I remembered) these were those special, relational, growing, maturing, changing years of friendship that remain with you throughout life. I’d be sharing my memories with people who, while she knows them and we are friends, can only identify by the events we shared back then.
And those memories came flooding out. We all left our daily lives and traveled back to days that we probably couldn’t wait to end while living them, but now hold onto as an integral part of who we’ve become. Geeks are professionals, class clowns are military officers, jocks are accountants who never played more than video games after high school and loud, obnoxious fools became talk show hosts.
I must say, at the risk of offending some classmates, the women, to the person, held up a whole lot better than their male counterparts; or sure hide it well if not!
At the 10 year, it was like coming back from a long summer break. By the 25th we realized that we really had grown up and sprouted lives of our own. Now at the 40th it’s bittersweet. We’ve lost classmates and/or their spouses or family members. The talk isn’t about the exiting careers ahead but looking back at what is now behind us; pending retirement or the increasing costs of college for our own grown kids. Don’t get me wrong, those attending aren’t in rockers waiting for their next Social Security check but for the first time as a group, we know those days are coming and will likely have arrived for most, if not all of us, by our next gathering.
But for those few hours we relived the pranks, teacher memories, relationship ups and downs (a number of attendees were in fact high school sweethearts), classes we all loved or hated and how we often lived on the edge doing things we dreaded the thought of our own children ever trying!
But we lived through it. It’s part of the process. Some of our lives are better because of those four years, and some really never changed. But I don’t believe, to the person, anybody came out worse for the experiences.
Your high school graduating class keeps you in check. It truly is a slice of America; especially this particular school. The greater Dayton area, of which Fairborn is part, is considered one of the true cross-sections of this nation when it comes to marketing and product testing. Fairborn, in those days, was a huge military town. There was a real mix of students who had lived all over the country and world, as well as some good old Midwesterners. And I think what we’ve accomplished, attempted, contributed and shared reflects the great American Dream.
So if your reunion is coming up and you haven’t been for a while, or have never been, please go. Your classmates will love seeing you. Although I will say one of my dear “friends” (who is a liberal and a lawyer-explains a lot)did take out a restraining order against me and presented it to me there, signed by an actual judge, barring me from being obnoxious and loud, or even coming within 500 feet of the reunion participants. I respected that court order about as much as I did every other rule while in school. The “lawyer”, and it’s questionable whether he actually passed the bar, was of course unable to keep me in check. And should you run into attorney Mike Falleur, (who voted for Nixon), at work or play, let him know that it takes more than a court order to shut me up!
As you can probably tell, I had a blast. We had a fantastic committee that organized the three day event and an absolutely amazing web page for our graduating class for us all to keep in touch. We had over 500 in our class who graduated and my guess is close to ¼ made it. That’s great!
My ONLY regret is that I had to show up with my body that was much like my physique in high school while others had shown the effects of the years. I can only hope they’ll forgive me. I did, after all, try to make myself look as bad as possible.
