Post 50th High School Reunion Reflection

This time yesterday. 

It does and it doesn’t feel like yesterday. Mostly, it doesn’t because 50 years—half a frickn’ century—have lapsed between the day we ceremoniously ribboned down the metaphoric path from the Boys’ Gym toward Sea Hawk Stadium where, upon the conclusion of our high school graduation, confettied the sky with hopes, dreams, and promises to make our wounded world a better place. 

That happened yesterday (actually, a month ago, but I haven’t had a moment or internet connection to post this entry), to the Class of 2024, my former 8^th grade English Language Arts students, the second-to-the-last class I had before I retired. High school graduates, they are, 97% of whom pledging to attend two and four-year higher education institutions. One of my beautiful former students sang “The Star Bangled Banner” more soulfully than I’ve ever heard the anthem sung before. Maybe it was because I knew her, loved her, witnessed her journey, her grace and talent and the many gifts she’ll share with the world. 

What will she become?

What did I become? 

A huge life awaits my former student and her peers, while a shrinking landscape is certain for the Class of 1974.

Profound doesn’t even begin to explain what it felt like to be reunited with high school classmates, some of whom were my buddy-buddies, while the majority were casual accountancies. Good people we were then and now, jokingly admitting that if we passed each other on the street today we wouldn’t recognize each other. Old people, we joked, are like babies who morph and change at meteoric speed, only they—we—are at the opposite end of the spectrum. We’re the same, but different in the best possible way because we endured, thrived and survived. 

No denying the fact that our physical appearance is drastically different from the black and white images depicted in our high school yearbook. But beneath our present-day cataracted, bespectacled eyes, glistened the same hope and love we’ve always had for each other. Sea Hawks Forever, our friendships framed by the turbulent times that defined our world view: the end of the Vietnam War, POWs, Watergate, Nixon, the lingering trauma of the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assignations. Many of us were inspired and empowered to roll up our sleeves and positively contribute to our bruised nation and pursued public service careers ranging from the law and medicine to education and entrepreneurial ventures. Many of us, it seems, have lived good, full lives and are enjoying retirement in states away from the South Bay: Oregon, Washington, Georgia, New Mexico, Hawaii and beyond are now our homes, so returning to the South Bay, seeing old friends, the congestion of our burgeoning former city, was sentimental and jarring, provoking deep reflection and conversations about ailing spouses, paths taken and untaken, upcoming surgeries, travel, grandchildren and memories of what it was like going to school at Redondo Union High School in the 1970s. 

50 years ago.

It doesn’t seem like yesterday. And no, I wouldn’t want to go back and re-live the life I’ve had. High school had its place. It was fun. It was hard. It was fake and real and cliquey and rich. All those snapshots. All those memories trapped in dusty boxes in even dustier storage units, for a day, taken out and appreciated. Those were, in retrospect, sunny days. Not all of them, but most. We had our first boyfriend and girlfriend. We learned how to succeed and fail. We held on to true friendships our entire lives. We never forgot the teachers who never gave up on us, those dedicated souls who saw in us what we couldn’t see in ourselves. They’re forever part of the story of our souls, something only we, the Class of ’74, can understand and appreciate. 

While my storage unit shrinks to compensate for rising rent rates, I still struggle with dumping what remains of my high school memorabilia because the yellowed photos, newspaper clips and assorted trinkets represent an innocent time, something those of us who attended (and others who wished they could) collectively felt at our 50-year class reunion. For once we left Sea Hawk Stadium a half a century ago, once we laundered and returned those borrowed graduation gowns, our lives diverged and we entered the outer space of life, the woulda, shoulda, coulda, left turn instead of right, tumbling down the mountain, hiking to the top, years that were exactly as we dreamed of and nothing of the sort. We made mistakes, recovered. We took the road less taken and enjoyed, and sometimes regretted, the well-worn path. Some of us remained friends, while most set sail like the seeds of a dandelion spinning into the mist. 

But for a day, the watercolor skies morphed from grey to ocean blue and we, The RUHS Class of 1974, floated in a cloud of gratitude as we applauded the new grads, and ourselves for showing up.

Fifty years ago we were they.

All the pre-reunion anxiety, judgment-worry, hair appointments, plastic surgery I never had (but thought A LOT about getting), weight I never lost, new clothes I didn’t buy—all the jitters we all apparently ALL had—made attending our half century rite of passage worth it.

We made it. We got to the other side. Not a claim all of us, unfortunately, could make. Not Cathy, Armando, Wynn, and a few weeks ago, Claire, who left the planet far too soon. God bless them, and all of us, as we journey on, grateful for friendships lost, and found.