T.D.H.S. - Yes!
It's that time of life, I guess. The time when I realize that time does not stop for me. "Time waits for no man." It must be true because this weekend is my 10-year high school reunion. Didn't I just leave that place? In some ways yes and in some ways no.
Memories are funny things. Sometimes I can think about things and remember them like they are yesterday. But then I look over some of the names on my reunion list and I think, "sounds vaguely familiar. I know I'm supposed to know you, but who are you?" So I think tomorrow night I'll pull out the old yearbook and do a little who's who refresher.
I remember the principal of our school telling the senior class that high school friends and friendships are the ones you never forget. They're the ones who you keep in touch with forever. He said that some people say it's college friends but that wasn't true. High school is where it was at, he seemed to be telling us. It was a nice encouragement, but I honestly haven't seen or talked to most of these people since the last day of school or the night of graduation. Some have been more recent.
Travel back with me, though to 1994. Would you be able to view a page like this in 1994? Of course not...the world wide web was being born. E-mail was not as ubiquitous. So I did the unthinkable during my freshman year of college: I wrote a few letters, stuffed them in envelopes, put stamps on them and sent them through the mail! Snail mail! I know...it's pretty hard to believe for some of you kids out there. Some went to UC Davis, some Stanford, some UCLA, one Harvard, some stayed at the local JC, etc... Anyway, my point is that I tried to keep in contact as best as I could. At least initially. Then, in 1995, I found out that everyone at school could get an e-mail account!
It was all text-based through UNIX using some program I can't remember right now... I think ctrl-d was send. So I found out a few friends' addresses who in turn passed my name on to other friends. Into my sophmore year of college we had quite a good list going. We would send out mass e-mails every few weeks or so and it was good to hear from a few people. I found out about people getting married, what was happening abroad, what was happening at home...but then it stopped. Or I stopped. Either way, the message frequency dropped to like one per semester (if that). Then, after college, forget it. Everyone went their separate ways...college accounts got deleted...how were we to find people?
CLASSMATES of course. Now, if I remember correctly, it was free when I signed up initially. I found that many of my high school classmates (clever name) had signed on, so I was able to leave them private messages on that site to try and contact them. This lasted for about 4 people. All the meanwhile, I've got a career starting up, getting married, in the process of having two kids, moving multiple times.... So I'm just guessing everyone else is busy as well.
Thank GOD for Classmates (I never thought I'd say that) because that is how I received my invitation to the reunion. It came through e-mail (what a difference 10 years makes) and I was able to see everyone else's addresses. So I e-mailed a few and got a few responses. Everyone is happy to hear from everyone else. And you know what? They're probably friends for life.
This is not to take anything away from my college friends who are going through what my high school friends went through at this stage (6 years out of college and I think I'm down to an e-mail every few months and maybe a Christmas card or something). But my college friends were all over the age spectrum and I didn't feel any ties to my "class of 1998."
Those kids in 1994 are a different story, and I hope to see them all this weekend.
Memories are funny things. Sometimes I can think about things and remember them like they are yesterday. But then I look over some of the names on my reunion list and I think, "sounds vaguely familiar. I know I'm supposed to know you, but who are you?" So I think tomorrow night I'll pull out the old yearbook and do a little who's who refresher.
I remember the principal of our school telling the senior class that high school friends and friendships are the ones you never forget. They're the ones who you keep in touch with forever. He said that some people say it's college friends but that wasn't true. High school is where it was at, he seemed to be telling us. It was a nice encouragement, but I honestly haven't seen or talked to most of these people since the last day of school or the night of graduation. Some have been more recent.
Travel back with me, though to 1994. Would you be able to view a page like this in 1994? Of course not...the world wide web was being born. E-mail was not as ubiquitous. So I did the unthinkable during my freshman year of college: I wrote a few letters, stuffed them in envelopes, put stamps on them and sent them through the mail! Snail mail! I know...it's pretty hard to believe for some of you kids out there. Some went to UC Davis, some Stanford, some UCLA, one Harvard, some stayed at the local JC, etc... Anyway, my point is that I tried to keep in contact as best as I could. At least initially. Then, in 1995, I found out that everyone at school could get an e-mail account!
It was all text-based through UNIX using some program I can't remember right now... I think ctrl-d was send. So I found out a few friends' addresses who in turn passed my name on to other friends. Into my sophmore year of college we had quite a good list going. We would send out mass e-mails every few weeks or so and it was good to hear from a few people. I found out about people getting married, what was happening abroad, what was happening at home...but then it stopped. Or I stopped. Either way, the message frequency dropped to like one per semester (if that). Then, after college, forget it. Everyone went their separate ways...college accounts got deleted...how were we to find people?
CLASSMATES of course. Now, if I remember correctly, it was free when I signed up initially. I found that many of my high school classmates (clever name) had signed on, so I was able to leave them private messages on that site to try and contact them. This lasted for about 4 people. All the meanwhile, I've got a career starting up, getting married, in the process of having two kids, moving multiple times.... So I'm just guessing everyone else is busy as well.
Thank GOD for Classmates (I never thought I'd say that) because that is how I received my invitation to the reunion. It came through e-mail (what a difference 10 years makes) and I was able to see everyone else's addresses. So I e-mailed a few and got a few responses. Everyone is happy to hear from everyone else. And you know what? They're probably friends for life.
This is not to take anything away from my college friends who are going through what my high school friends went through at this stage (6 years out of college and I think I'm down to an e-mail every few months and maybe a Christmas card or something). But my college friends were all over the age spectrum and I didn't feel any ties to my "class of 1998."
Those kids in 1994 are a different story, and I hope to see them all this weekend.
posted by Count Olaf | 12:50 PM
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