You have had an interesting life, and you’ve probably accomplished at least a few things of which you are proud.  Why would it be any different for the people who went to school with you?  In two days of reunion activities I chatted with classmates who have been working in such diverse fields as anthropology, dental medicine, scanning electron microscopy, teaching, writing, nonprofit development, sales, engineering, and politics.  Some of us have no children (“just cats”)  and others have lots of children or just a few.  Some have infant grandchildren and others have grandchildren who already have their own children.  While many of our classmates stayed in California, nearly half did not.  Graduates of our high school live in Portland, Denver, Nashville, Columbia MO, and Alexandria, VA.  It was fascinating to learn about their work lives, their family lives, and how they play.

3. Because you’ll probably have a good time

If your planners have allowed enough time for quiet conversation, and ours did, much of the time, your reunion may look pretty much like this (assuming you decide to go informal and dress in 60s garb):

All those people who have lived such interesting lives?  The way you find that out is to talk with them.  We did a lot of talking.  It’s amazing — the guy who never opened his mouth in class turns out to be a college president; or the math whiz has been living in Taos, New Mexico all these years, painting landscapes.  Who knew that the scrawny little kid who hated PE would compete in the Idatarod?  Or that one of our cheerleaders, another math whiz as it happens, would be a career Naval officer?

Just about everyone at our events seemed to be having a good time.  Whether they were meeting and greeting at the wine and cheese event Friday night, touring our newly refurbished high school on Saturday morning, or pouring through memorabilia at the entrance to the banquet hall on Saturday evening, people were engaged in reminiscing and in meeting old and new friends.

At breakfast in the hotel Sunday morning, clusters of classmates hopped from table to table, making arrangements to tour old neighborhoods and exchanging contact information so they could get together at a later date.  An amazing thing happens when a cohort gets together — you may be talking to someone you don’t even remember, but when you enter the high school library and you both realize that’s where you were standing when you learned President Kennedy had been shot, you immediately feel a bond.  If you shared the love (or fear) of a particular teacher, played in the band or on the football team, cut the assembly or got detention . . . you have something to share.  It’s called camaraderie.

4. Go just because you can

Take a risk. Don’t live in the past.  Even if you need a walker or a cane to get around (we had a few of those), or need to do without something else to come up with the travel funds — if you can find a way to justify it, to organize yourself, to coordinate the trip with something else in the same geographic region — I assure you it will be worth it.

For some, the special moment at our reunion was when dancers crooned along with Roy Orbison in an a capella rendition of “Crying.”  For others, it was dancing as dirty as our creaky joints would allow when the band played the song that had ended our Junior Prom.  (Horrified by the dance moves in the newly-popular “Swim,” the principal pulled the plug and sent us all home.)

For me, it was looking around the room at all the people who shared a small space and time 50 years ago, and watching them talk and laugh and cry as they reminisced, shared life’s joys and sadness, and made new friendships.