High School Reunion Database

Every five years, as summertime nears,
An announcement arrives in the mail,
A reunion is planned; it’ll be really grand;
Make plans to attend without fail.

I’ll never forget the first time we met;
We tried so hard to impress.
We drove fancy cars, smoked big cigars,
And wore our most elegant dress.

It was quite an affair; the whole class was there.
It was held at a fancy hotel.
We wined, and we dined, and we acted refined,
And everyone thought it was swell.

The men all conversed about who had been first
To achieve great fortune and fame.
Meanwhile, their spouses described their fine houses
And how beautiful their children became.

The homecoming queen, who once had been lean,
Now weighed in at one-ninety-six.
The jocks who were there had all lost their hair,
And the cheerleaders could no longer do kicks.

No one had heard about the class nerd
Who’d guided a spacecraft to the moon;
Or poor little Jane, who’s always been plain;
She married a shipping tycoon.

The boy we’d decreed ‘most apt to succeed’
Was serving ten years in the pen,
While the one voted’ least’ now was a priest;
Just shows you can be wrong now and then.

They awarded a prize to one of the guys
Who seemed to have aged the least.
Another was given to the grad who had driven
The farthest to attend the feast.

They took a class picture, a curious mixture
Of beehives, crew cuts and wide ties.
Tall, short, or skinny, the style was the mini;
You never saw so many thighs.

At our next get-together, no one cared whether
They impressed their classmates or not.
The mood was informal, a whole lot more normal;
By this time we’d all gone to pot.

It was held out-of-doors, at the lake shores;
We ate hamburgers, coleslaw, and beans.
Then most of us lay around in the shade,
In our comfortable T-shirts and jeans.

By the fortieth year, it was abundantly clear,
We were definitely over the hill.
Those who weren’t dead had to crawl out of bed,
And be home in time for their pill.

And now I can’t wait; they’ve set the date;
Our fiftieth is coming, I’m told.
It should be a ball, they’ve rented a hall
At the Shady Rest Home for the old.

Repairs have been made on my hearing aid;
My pacemaker’s been turned up on high.
My wheelchair is oiled, and my teeth have been boiled;
And I’ve bought a new wig and glass eye.

I’m feeling quite hearty, and I’m ready to party
I’m gonna dance ‘til dawn’s early light.
It’ll be lots of fun; But I just hope that there’s one
Other person who can make it that night.

About High School Reunions


by Anne Rodgers, West Palm Beach, Fla [Reprint AARP magazine March, 2012]


AARP Magazine or Join AARP


Some people faithfully attend school reunions. Others scoff and wonder if it isn’t a bit crazy to fly halfway across the country to see folks who, except for maybe three or four, are not acquainted with who you are now and certainly don’t care. So why go?


My high school experience is best summed up as awkward and interminable. Though adulthood has shown me to be a clear-cut extrovert, I was unable to access that quality amid the agony of self-consciousness that drowned me in high school.


So — once a decade — reunions have become that rare opportunity for a do-over. I can mingle with people I was once too shy to speak to, be friendly, be the person I wanted to be in high school. It’s a chance to spruce up outdated recollections steeped in angst-filled teenage introspection and self-absorption. Rewriting history this way has become a big lure of reunions. But it didn’t start out that way.


Because I have not lived in my hometown since I left for college, I went to my 10th high school reunion out of curiosity. I was depressed and a bit horrified to find many classmates still clinging to their outdated cliques: Cheerleaders were still with cheerleaders. Same with the band kids and athletes. I went to my 20 out of perversity, I suppose, with low expectations — and was delighted to discover my fellow grads had come to see that what bound us together was much more important than those small differences that separated us in high school. It was a fun night.


My recent 40th reunion included a tour of the old neighborhood by my best friend from grade school. I was shocked to see that the lawn space between his house and the next-door neighbor’s was tiny, 4 ot 5 feet. I remember flying kites from that spot and learning to twirl a baton there, in what I’d recalled as a vast expanse. How could all those bright memories fit into such a small space?


At our high school, where my friend and I were part of the third graduating class, I teared up as we pulled into the parking lot. “Just think, 40 years ago this was brand-new,” he said. And so were we, I thought. We were embarking on complicated lives we could in no way predcict. In that moment, the passage of 40 years was an exceedingly difficult concept to absorb.


But those experiences are why I’m willing to make the long journey home. What a gift it is to come face-to-face with the tangible reminders of youth, which rekindle those priceless memories.

Rhsaas.org has an Alumni Profiles program where you can place your personal contact information.

It is located in the right hand menu of Rhsaas.org.

Rhsasas.Org on Facebook

All alumni from high schools in Schuyler, Chemung, Stuben Counties in NY and Tioga County in PA and their friends are welcome to join in the posts on the new Facebook Rhsaas.org site.

Please post the following information [if you have it —
[if not post what you have and come back later to update it as information becomes available.]

Title of Notice MUST include your School and Class Year.

Name of Event
School/Event
Class/Classes
Date of Event
Time of Event
Location of Event/Events
Do/Do not need to pre-register
Date of deadline to pre-register
Cost
Description of Event
Contact Information [name/names, email address, and/or phone number]
Url of your Reunion Website, if any
Do/Do not Need Volunteers for the Reunion/Event

If you are having an alumni reunion, group/sport/club gathering/event, post your information for it hereon.

If you need to place your flyer or newsletter on your classpage, contact the rhsaas-webmaster or if you need additional help, contact rhsaas.org-webmaster@rhsaas.org.