it involves school, but not from the perspective of the teacher.
As I write this, I sit in the lobby of the Courtyard Marriott in Rye, NY. This is one of the hotels for the event I am attending this weekend, the 50th Reunion of the class of 1963, Mamaroneck (NY) High School. There are others staying here, some are staying with families or friends (a number of our classmates still live in the area).
Last night we had a dinner, with a DJ, and spent close to two hours going around with people sharing.
This morning there is a memorial service for a member of the reunion committee, Frank F., who sadly passed away three weeks ago.
At midday many of us will gather at Walter's Hot Dog Stand on Palmer Avenue, a Mamaroneck Institution, which in our day if you attempted to cross the Avenue during the school day could lead to a suspension.
Then tonight we will gather again, at Orienta Beach Club, for another dinner, a live band, and some more sharing.
This diary is a reflection on school, classmates, mentors and life.
I was very unhappy in high school. But as I told my classmates last night, that was not there fault - I lived in a loving but very dysfunctional family, in my case fueled by alcohol. Most of my classmates had never known that, not even in the five decades since we graduated, since even at previous gatherings I had never shared that.
Nor did most know that my mother failed to make my graduation because she was dead drunk, or that she passed away later that same week, only 47 years old.
In our day, often we tried very hard to hide our pains from one another.
Oh, our friends would now about our latest girl-friend boy-friend disputes. One person told a now-humorous tale about how in junior high school when the boys would play basketball at one end of the gym and girls would dance with one another at the other, her boyfriend sent one of his friends over to cut in and dance with her and inform her that he was breaking up with her!!
For many there were tales about teachers. Some were of their odd and unique patterns of behaviors, but that helped us to remember them. For others, it was how demanding the teachers were, and how in retrospect they came to appreciate that. A few encountered former teachers living nearby years after the mentors had retired, and formed real friendship - here I can say I have perhaps been more fortunate in being able to stay in ongoing contact thanks to things like Facebook that were not available them - I am in regular contact with many former students, and a major portion of my Facebook Friends list is of former students.
Perhaps a quarter of those still living will appear at one or more of the events this weekend. This is a class that had a reunion every 5 years except not enough to warrant a 45th. One classmate here encountered someone who grew up across the street from me but who cannot come, and she asked the attendee to pass on her greetings.
Similarly, I know that one classmate used to live nextdoor to a woman who had been a friend of my wife in college and with whom we are still in contact. I texted that woman who sent her greetings back in a text, which I shared.
There are some people attending with whom I have had some ongoing contact, although perhaps not as much as I might like. I am glad to have the opportunity to reconnect.
There are others I really did not know. 348 of us graduated on Monday June 24, 1963. We include in our class some others who did not - they went to prep school after 8th or 9th grade, or they moved away, or in one case, after spending a year in India had to repeat a grade and graduated a year later.
Some of the connections go way back. There were people who had lived next door to one another at age 3, or others in the same nursery school class.
Junior high school - 7th grade - was a key time. There were four elementary schools feeding our one junior high, and a number of kids who went to Catholic schools through 8th grade. Last night one of the boys who had gone to Catholic School remarked on the change - he was shocked to discover that Jews and Protestants and Blacks were real people, because he had not known any before 7th grade.
I too joined the class in 7th grade, albeit by a slightly different route. I am a year younger than most of my classmates. The school system kept wanting to skip me, but my parents refused, largely because my mother -who had graduated from high school at 14, college at 18, and law school at 21, had never really grown up - did not want that social dislocation for me. Finally in 6th grade they gave me a choice, and after four weeks I walked into my 7th grade homeroom, a bit late, and not for the first time as an oddity among my peers.
We have classmates who have had some major successes in their lives. For this occasion, possible political differences are overlooked. The class includes Tom Horne, who was here, who is now Attorney General of Arizona. It includes Rick Nicita, who as Al Pacino's agent talked that worthy into taking the role in Scent of a Woman that earned an Oscar as best actor - I remember Pacino thanking Rick and seeing the camera pan to him in the audience. In includes Carla Maxwell, who I believe still runs the Jose Limon Dance Company. Others have had notable careers in other fields. One has two great-grandchildren.
Some of our classmates came from very comfortable circumstances. Not all the wealthy families sent their kids to private school, because our schools - and our teachers - were so good. Others came from working-class environments.
Some had unbroken academic success. Others struggled for a while and did not finish four year college until much later -- that was true of me, who despite being one of two National Merit Scholars in the class did not graduate from college until shortly before my 27th birthday.
Many are retired. Some have embarked on new endeavors: photography, volunteer work, etc.
Others, like me, are passionate about the work they do and want to continue it as long as they can.
I remarked that as we have matured we seem to have become better able to accept others as we have learned to accept ourselves.
Which is perhaps why some of the funniest moments were about events from long ago which at the time were painful. One classmate whose father was a world-famous musician recounted a fight in 4th grade - which he had lost. A young lady told a tale of how when new to the class a boy had given her his ID bracelet to wear as his girlfriend three other girls confronted her and told her he belonged to them and took it way. Actually, one of those semi-admitted having done it, but there was no bitterness, just a memory of all of the kinds of things we experienced, a recognition that at times we were very silly.
Our class had a famous incident. Shortly before graduation several students got caught in prank - painting the school and part of the parking lot. Our principal gave kids a choice between participating in the graduation or the prom, which in our day was that same night. One of the participants explained how that wasn't a choice since his parents insisted on graduation.
We talked.
We hugged.
There was a board with pictures of those no longer with us. Some who had not been in touch with the class were shocked to learn how young some of those were at the time they passed.
We are 67 and 68 now.
We are not so young.
Each five year period will mean there will be fewer of us.
It is somewhat amazing given our age that none of the guys died in Vietnam.
Some have lost spouses to cancer or heart attacks, sometimes after more than 4 decades of marriage.
There is still one married couple that were both our classmates, although both were married to others before this.
The community has changed. I was last back 10 years ago. When I arrived early afternoon yesterday I spent more than an hour driving around. I can still remember who lived in what house in my neighborhood.
EVen though many of the houses have been around for longer than we have been alive (the one in which I grew up was built in the early 1920s) some are now very different - it is not just paint, or additions. The landscaping is different.
Few of the stores have the same names. The business areas are very different.
Part of what was once a park is now a Middle School. The Junior high school of our day is now part of a two-building complex serving the high school, and what was the nearby elementary school is now Township offices of various kinds.
We are older. We are grayer - if we still have enough hair to determine color, which is not the case for all the men. Many of us are heavier, but some have shed pounds over the years and look great.
I do not know how many of us would make another reunion. Perhaps that is why so many of us came back for this one, with the person traveling the farthest (so far) having come from Honolulu. Although one person who was last here for the 25th said he planned if alive to return again in another 25 years.
I do not have an eidetic memory. But if something catches my attention, I never forget it. I can tell people things about themselves they have forgotten. I try to be selective about that, because sometimes the memories might be forgotten for good reason.
What I do remember is voices. When I was sitting in the lobby yesterday as some people were checking in, there were those I immediately recognized, and others that only when I heard their voices.
One good friend whom I had not seen in more than forty years had an unfair advantage. Our contact has been online, and as someone in education she has read a lot of what I have written, some of which has been accompanied by pictures. She recognized me. I did not recognize her until she began to speak.
Today there will be more sharing.
Today there will be more hugs.
Today, and tonight, we will remember what it was like to be young.
When we listened to songs of our youth last night, many of us sang along - the words and music from then are a permanent part of who we are.
Tonight perhaps a few of us will even attempt to do the dances we learned as young ones, even as the bodies can no longer move as they did - we will still remember the steps.
My favorite poem is from T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding, the last of the Four Quartets. The final stanza begins with these lines:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
It is not the place so much, for it has changed, although it remains infused with our memories.
It is the people.
We have all grown and changed as a result of our lives' journeys.
Somehow we can both hand on to things remembered, and rediscover and learn anew, about ourselves, about one another.
Reunions might not always be happy.
Certainly this one is tinged with the sense of loss - of those no longer with us, of the realization that this will likely be the last time many of us see one another.
And yet, this is a positive experience, at least for me. I find myself even at my advanced age continuing to mature, most of all in my ability to appreciate others, and - yes - to love and accept them.
And so perhaps it is best that I end this reflection with the rest of that final stanza. The words speak to me, I can place this experience within the insight they provide. So as I now offer you my final salutation
Peace
I leave you with those words:
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.