40th High School Reunion!

[learnteach]

I have not been to any previous high school reunions.  I joined the Army when I was 22 and left my hometown and have only been back a few times to visit. I did not keep in touch with any classmates until recently. Now, we are all on Classmates.com, Facebook, MySpace, and we have a class website and Yahoo Group. Suddenly I am talking to people I seldom spoke to in high school.

The wierdest thing is seeing photos of these people and trying to figure out who they are. They don't look anything like their high school photos!!  I am still very short, but I have shrunk a few inches since high school. I guess my hair is a little different, it used to be long and dark, now it is short and gray. I have put on a few pounds (that's what happens when you have a kid at 42).  I guess they don't recognize me either. Now, a lot of us are retired so we can't say what do you do? We can talk about our kids and grandkids, but they won't know much about them and probably don't care. What are we going to talk about?

I am going to take my 15 yr old son with me. He is so excited about visiting Texas and eating real barbecue and a huge Texas steak. He reads my Texas Highway magazines each month and sees things on the Food Channel like "Steak Paradise" and "Barbecue Paradise".   I am going to drive around and show him where I grew up and went to school, the first house I ever bought, where I used to work when I was young, and where I went to college, for a short while. I will also visit the National Cemetary at Ft. Sam Houston to visit the graves of relatives and a friend that died during the Vietnam War. 

We will also visit the Museum, several colleges and universities (Jared is interested in going to school there), and places that he might find interesting to work at (Southwest Research, etc.). I want to check out the V.A. Hospital there, see if it is better or worse than the one here. The reunion is in June, so it will probably be very, very hot. As long as the rental car and motel room have air conditioning, I should be able to survive the heat and any hot flashes. I am hoping that plane fares will still be discounted by the time I save enough money for two round trip tickets.  My Mom will be 93 in June and I will visit her while I am there. She lives 300 miles away in Ft. Worth now, near my sister. Wish I had kept up with some of my classmates and friends, then I would have a free place to stay. I am getting a little excited about going back. I guess I am a little homesick.  I really miss Texas and my family there.

[coutterhill]

Mar. 1, 2009 at 12:49 PM

I can't go to my reunions because we were military brats and we are still spread all over the world. I too, joined the Army out of high school and just recently hooked up with people on Facebook. Isn't it odd speaking, (typing) to people you hardly spoke to in high school?

[Cindy18]

Mar. 1, 2009 at 5:20 PM

How exciting! Going home is always exciting and then to be able to show your son things will be fun! Have a blast!