Class Reunion

In June it will have been twenty trips around the sun from the moment my classmates and I turned our tassels and exited high school with diplomas.  Twenty years come and gone, like a popup internet ad asking if you have test driven the new Corolla and letting you know that the 2.9% financing is almost gone.  Twenty years ago, we didn’t even have the internet, not at our school.  Our school feared the internet because we only had one theater when War Games was released and everyone went to see it.

I’m comfortable with the psychological weight of twenty years passing.  Looking back, I only wasted like, nine of those years and the other eleven I filled with moderately productive stuff that I wouldn’t be afraid to list on a resume.  That isn’t a bad ratio.  I have learned that life isn’t measured accurately in money and junk you acquire, but your happiness and the people you surround yourself with.  Despite this lesson being shoved down our throats every holiday season, it still took me until 9 months ago to kind of figure that out. That being said, I wouldn’t say “no” to a Tesla S, or a solid gold toilet (long basin).

The only weight I am feeling now is the responsibility given to me to ensure a twenty-year class reunion takes place.  I’m supposed to set this shindig up, and I’m here to tell you, I am not doing a good job.  For one thing, instead of putting up the necessary organizational web-page, I’m blogging right now.  I could literally stop after this sentence and throw up a site…  I didn’t.  I’m still writing.  In fact, I’m going to hit return and start a new paragraph.

It will be a short paragraph helping me segue into the subject of reunion relevance.  I could choose to put a joke here but that wouldn’t allow for a short paragraph then, would it?

My question is: Are reunions even relevant anymore?

No, they aren’t, and that’s the Damm truth.

Wait, it isn’t over yet.  You need to hear the “why’s” and the proof.  There’s plenty of reasons not to have a reunion.  The largest reason is that they are a pain in the neck extending to the lower back with shooting pulses of discomfort and stinging needles, most recently and specifically, mine, as the organizer/chairman/Poo-Ba of the event.  And if it’s a pain in mine, it’s a pain in everyone else’s.

Another big reason is that reunions traditionally have been held for people to get together and catch-up with each other, find out how the group was doing collectively, or to seek out possible DNA samples for paternity tests.  In the past, it was incredibly difficult to maintain contact with so many people.  We don’t have that issue anymore.

We have social media and by that, I mean the Facebook.  With the Facebook, every classmate you had that you want to talk to is available for you to reach.  You see their family pictures, they see yours.  You know that they can’t stand Mondays and that they really like coffee, and that if coffee is available on Monday, then their life is a little easier.  Also, you know where they work, who they are married to, divorced from, dating or stalking.  You have so much information on enough of your classmates, you could probably guess their passwords in under fifty tries.

If they’re not on the Facebook by now, there’s a reason and it’s more than likely that they don’t want to be found.  OR it’s because they think that nanite robots are going to control their mind, and therefore we won’t be able to contact them anyway, because they don’t have a phone either.

What makes a reunion successful?  The interwebs tell us that if 10-20% of a graduating class returns for a class reunion, it should be considered a success.  If you have 30% turnout, you have a wildly successful class reunion.  If you have 30% turnout at the 60 year reunion, it’s a miracle.  This brings me to my next argument.

My graduating class hits these kinds of numbers all the time.  Sometimes we hit it monthly; for a while it was weekly.  You see, my graduating class is only 20 people.  That means if six of us show up to the same place, we have a “wildly successful” class reunion.

I was in a band with between 10-15% of my graduating class for years.  For another stretch of years I hosted a podcast with 10-15% of my graduating class.  There are weeks when I talk to 40-60% of my classmates.  Hell, I bet 30% read this blog post.  That’s not me being cocky either, that’s six people.  It still doesn’t make my blog “wildly successful,” but it does with my class.

Are there people I would love to see and shake hands with?  Absolutely.  I like my classmates, but there are many who live far away and I wouldn’t wish them the rough time of making it back to our hometown to reminisce about the glory days.  Trips with kids can be expensive, and would I rather they blow that hard earned money on a silly excursion to hear live the Facebook posts?  No, use that money on a trip to Disneyland or a museum for the kids.  Use the money on a hobby or that paternity test you’ve been putting off for 19 years.

Am I going to attempt to throw a nice little party for my class to get together and swap old stories?  Absolutely.  I like the idea of seeing all the old gang and hearing first-hand what has been going on in their lives.  But sometimes the people you want to hear from the most are the ones that will never come, and that’s the Damm truth.