Going to Your Reunion?

I’ve been thinking a lot about reunions—specifically high school reunions—because I’ve recently received a couple of mailings about my 50-year reunion to be held later this summer. I’ve heard from fellow classmates I haven’t seen or heard from in, well, 50 years.

I’m somewhat uncertain about this approaching reunion, but I am looking forward to seeing my classmates and curious about how they turned out.

I looked at numerous articles, columns and blogs about attending high school reunions and most of the authors had a negative point of view. Some of the authors had a lot of angst before about whether to attend or not. Ken Levine, a writer/producer/director who has worked on numerous TV shows and has done play-by-play of major league baseball asked: “How much do you want to see these people again?”

My Reunions

I did go to my 20-year reunion and actually had a pretty good time. Some people had changed a lot and others not so much. It was a fun, interesting evening, but I have not attended any other reunions of my high school class since, so I have seen only a few of my classmates in the last 30 years.

A few years ago I did attend the 50-year reunion of my eighth-grade class and it was a wonderful evening—better than I expected. Amazingly, more than half of the class attended even though nine members of our class of 58 students had passed away. Because we were 8^th graders the last time we had met, some of the less desirable things about high school were absent—although by the end of the evening most of us were congregated in the same cliques as 50 years before.

My 8th Grade Class-St. Catherine's School in 1962

St. Catherine's Class of '62 in 2012

Social Media and Reunions

One thing that has changed the dynamic of high school reunions is Facebook. There is disagreement whether this was a positive or negative among the sources I looked at. Some writers thought Facebook was great because it helped reunion organizers get in touch with classmates about reunion details. It also provides a preview of the reunion because you can see what some of your classmates look like before the event.

But, others say this lessens curiosity as a reason to attend. One writer even suggested this as a possible reason that there is less interest in reunions now and that causes attendance to suffer. That’s an interesting argument, but I’m not sure if interest and attendance at class reunions is declining.

A Member of the First Class

Another factor in my experience is that I didn’t know a lot of my high school classmates very well. I attended a Catholic high school in a suburb of Dayton, Ohio, and our students came from a fairly spread out area. So, before I was old enough to drive, most of my social contacts in my neighborhood went to the public high school near where I lived.

Also, my family moved to the Dayton area during the summer before my freshman year, so I hadn’t gone to grade school with any of my high school classmates. The first day of my freshman year, I walked into that school and knew absolutely no one.

The most unique fact about my high school class is we were the first class to graduate from that school. We began as the only class as freshman and a class was added below us each year until the school was at capacity our senior year. So, I never had any upperclassmen in high school and that was mostly a positive.

But, there was no established tradition and there were very few activities the first couple of years. For example, I liked music and dabbled in guitar and piano, but there was no band program although I did sing in the glee club and really enjoyed that.

The Pros and Cons of Reunions

Several sources indicate that somewhere between 20 and 30-percent of a high school class will attend a reunion and a 30-percent turnout is considered excellent. The most popular reunion for attendance is the 50^th, followed by the 10^th and 25^th reunions. The most popular months to hold a class reunion are July and August, followed by June and September.

The bad news is that by the 50^th reunion of a high school class, on average about 20 percent will have passed away.

When deciding whether to attend a reunion, whether 50-year, 20-year or whatever, there are pros and cons to consider. The biggest pro is to satisfy curiosity. You’ll get an answer to the question, “Whatever happened to…?” for many of your classmates, even some who don’t attend. What could be either a pro or a con is if your “old flame” attends the reunion—something that could go in almost any direction and has been a popular storyline for numerous movies and TV shows.

Another possible con is how well or poorly the years have treated you and your classmates. In a New York Times column, former TV talk show host and comic Dick Cavett observed after his 50^th reunion that: “The strangest part of the aging factor is that, as with suffering, people don’t experience it equally.” You may be concerned about your appearance or will be shocked and saddened by the appearance of some of your classmates.

A few months after my 50-year 8^th grade reunion, one of my classmates was moved to tears when the star football player in our class arrived at a St. Patrick’s day party in a bar using a walker. She said how sad it was to see someone who was so strong and athletic as a young man in that condition. Yes, it was sad, but a year later at the same gathering he had recovered a lot, walking on his own and looking much better, for someone our age.

So, if you go to your reunion, just remind yourself that most everyone there has the same feelings as you. If you are cynical, remind yourself that it will only last a few hours and then you will never see most of your classmates again. On the other hand, especially with social media, email and unlimited long-distance phones, you might be able to rekindle a long-dormant friendship. But, the only way to do that is to go. So, enjoy.