My class, the class of 1965, graduated from Bay City Central HS 55 years ago tonight. 6pm Central Stadium. 631 in the class I think. We started 4 years before with 1600+. Back then you could quit school or be asked to leave at age 16. There wasn't a lot of mercy.
The valdedictorian, Susan passed by her own hands during college at MSU. Her dad ran the local Sears store. She was smart and very very nice..reminds me of CJ Craig on West Wing. The salutatorian has also disappeared from my view while many others have passed on and frankly now that we are all of AARP age, many of us have gone to a better place.
There was a reunion of our class about about 8 years ago at the fairgrounds, in the ice skating rink's warming shed..a near and dear place for most of us as this was a time before cell phones and endless activities planned by parents - but a time when you found your own way of sorts...stumbling a lot..made horrible choices that still cause primal scream moments when alone in the car. I do care a lot about many of them who were good friends then and after 50+ years of "non-seeing" (I've been back to Bay City 1 time in 50 years!) and the one of the friends from then that I have purposefully seen - and that being in Florida - was a brother of a close HS friend who now has altzheimers and we spent the evening trying to find the fork.
I have a few on my email and now perhaps 50 on Facebook..people who I am mentally and spiritually very attached to - Stewart, his sister Liz, Fred and Louise, Barb in Vermont, Carol in Colorado, Laura in Florida, Kathy and Bill (cousins and Bill long a departed) Larry in Wisconsin, Linda who plays in a german band in a town nearby..Janet, Mary and her brother in and out of Michigan, Mary who is a biggie in the State Legislature, another Fred, Ann, Nan, Anne and another Ann, Judy who went to another school, Barb, Roger, Sally, Char, Mike, the Twins, CWags,.well so many (don't get pissed if I leave you out) all extraordinarily fine people who have had their share, I'm sure, but will always endure in my mind, in a special place and in a special time.