I've been to a few high school class reunions. I went to reunions 10, 15, and 25. They were all very nice. My freshman class had 240+ students in that all boy school. I don't know how many of those 240+ made it through to graduation 4 years later but it was surely over 200. I got to know some of those guys but none of them all that well. I only still see or communicate with three or four of them. That brings me to last night.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help's 8th Grade Class of 1971 had a reunion last night. It was facilitated through the magic of Facebook and the dedicated effort of a few of my classmates. These were kids I did get to know. I went to kindergarten so I was in school with some of them for 9 years. Many of my classmates lived on my street or one street over and we rode the bus to school together. It was a time when neighborhoods were neighborhoods. Everyone knew everyone. Ours was a class of 60 or so and about half of us were able to attend. I hadn't seen many of them since graduation 40 years ago and I only still see or communicate with three or four of these people, too. Those very nice high school reunions I went to were a 1 compared to last night's 10. I can't begin to explain or describe the sheer joy we all had at seeing and reconnecting with each other. It was an amazing evening.
On another note: Thanks to Kate P for a lovely surprise in our mailbox Friday. The Tastykakes were delicious.
I am finally going to seek professional help. No, for the blog, not the other thing. There are problems with the comment system here that I cannot seem to resolve.
5 song iTune shuffle:
- Ain't No Sunshine - Bill Withers - 1971
- She's A Lady - Tom Jones - 1971
- That's The Way I've Always Heard - Carly Simon - 1971
- Draggin' The Line - Tommy James & The Shondells - 1971
- All I Ever Need Is You - Sonny & Cher - 1971
Quote of the Day
Back together again
OLPH
The Class of 71
And the music of 71
WTIX Radio
Blog of the day is here.
Quote from said blog: "Thank you to all OLPH parents, faculty, staff, and parishoners for helping to make OLPH School a shining light of faith in education."
That reunion sounds like a great time, Rob. I'd never do a high school reunion since I hated high school so much, but middle school would be an interesting thing, for sure.
The only thing I'd tell you about that is to just do it, GWS. Don't wait for a round number, don't wait until everyone is accounted for, just don't wait. We did it through Facebook. We started with a few and it took off from there. I didn't do as much as I would have liked because of some things going on right now but I hope to contribute more next time. Surprisingly, the girls located all of their classmates, married names and all. About a third of the guys were never located.
It sounds like you had a great time at your reunion. I went to the Friday night drinkin' fest for my 25th high school reunion, and that was enough for me.
Rob, have you considered that the problem my be with your host's servers and not with your blog?
Hmmm. My top songs for 1971 -- what I actually liked then, as opposed to what grew on me later -- would actually include a Carpenters' tune ("Superstar") along with "Shaft" (Isaac Hayes) "Me and Bobby McGee" (Janis Joplin), "Maggie May" (Rod Stewart), "What's Going On" (Marvin Gaye) and "If You Could Read My Mind" (Gordon Lightfoot). Still like all of them (and thus begins a long, long online digression trying to find the WLS Silver Dollar Surveys of that era -- I still have a box of them in my brother's basement).
Also, my Freshman class started out with 540 and ended up with about 465.
Dan, you might like this WLS time sweep from about 1970 to 1980:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga43fpv0nQU
We had a great time, Marie. We laughed all night. I'm always concerned about my hosts being the problem but I don't think they are this time. In this case, I think it's a configuration error or a permission issue in Movable Type but I just can't seem to get to the bottom of it.
Dan,
Our host for last night used to work in radio. The local station we all grew up with, WTIX, dedicated the evening to us and counted down the top 71 songs of 1971. I don't think the Gordon Lightfoot was on the the playlist but all of your others were.