Class Reunion Time

This weekend was my 20th class reunion. It's hard to not feel old while writing that.

We were a "large" class in a very small school--the high school had 40 kids total and my class graduated 14. 8 of us went all 12 years together and by the end, seemed more like siblings than classmates. We have never held a reunion of any sort, so in many cases, this was the first time most of us had seen each other since graduation. Since many of us had young parents, I think most of us looked more like our parents than like our former selves, which magnified the entire time-warp effect. Feeling like we were in a room full of parents, it was hard to not expect someone to suddenly chastise us for being too loud--in a small town ANYONE'S parents were allowed to yell at you when you were doing something stupid. We think there's a code written down somewhere with all the rules because everyone knew what they were and it wasn't a question of whether or not someone's parents allowed something--it was just wrong and you were in trouble with the closest parental unit.

Our class was always considered the bane of the substitute teacher's existence, but as one of the few classes to go through without any pregnancies, drug problems, or other "big" issues, we were a pretty harmless bunch. We were firm believers in practical jokes and were known to pick the lock to our classroom in elementary school so we could get into the classroom without anyone noticing that our teacher hadn't shown up for the day, and there were a few memorable incidences in shop class over the years, and the young teacher we had for Consumer Education might have left the teaching field entirely after a year with us, but no one got in fist fights and if someone had a gun in his truck, it meant he was going hunting after school. Like everything in reality, it wasn't perfect, but it was a much simpler time to be growing up--I guess in some ways, it's good to be older. :)