40 years Out of High School...
I had a very nice time this weekend at my 40 year class reunion. I have always felt that those three years of high school were a pretty pretty small part of my life compared to the 40 that have followed but maybe I was wrong as old connections pull me back and I look back to roots that go even deeper than simply the class of 1975.
This is the graduating class of Peter Pan Kindergarten. If you spot which one I am I'll ride by your house on a bicycle playing a tuba. The photo was taken spring of 1963. Many of the people in this photo were at the reunion Saturday night. Let's see what roots show here.
That fall semester of 1962 had been the Cuban Missile Crisis and the brink of nuclear war. Most of these kids would be at good old Trout Elementary in the Fall semester of 1963 when JFK would be assassinated. I recall going with my mom to the principles office while at Trout after some kind of testing where I seem to remember the teacher telling my mom "he puts the square peg in the round hole." In 1969 this class would be in 7th grade at the old Junior High which is now Pineywoods Community Academy, a charter school. It was the year Lufkin Schools finally integrated some 15 years after the Brown vs. The Board of Education Supreme Court decision. I would begin playing the tuba that year. We would be too young to really be good hippies and luckily too young to go to Vietnam. Somehow all these things were good things for us and we came through it to be the class of 1975.
Just the other day I related the story of the square peg in the round hole to my wife. She said "You still do that." I also still play the tuba. I have a job that square peg in the round hole thinkers do well in. Sometimes I even take the tuba to work when it's some one's birthday and I play "Happy Birthday" for them or maybe at the Christmas party I make my daughter Mary dress as an elf and play drums while we do drum and tuba Christmas songs.
So all these years after Peter Pan, after High School, after all this tuba playing and self examination of blog writing we come on down to what makes us what we are. I have been guilty of not keeping up with many those people in the photo even when some of them are right here in town with me. Somehow I realized this weekend that the times with those people are a part of me and made me.
There is talk of getting back together in five years. Who knows how many will be able to do that. Glad I did it this year. As they say, "thanks for the memories."
That fall semester of 1962 had been the Cuban Missile Crisis and the brink of nuclear war. Most of these kids would be at good old Trout Elementary in the Fall semester of 1963 when JFK would be assassinated. I recall going with my mom to the principles office while at Trout after some kind of testing where I seem to remember the teacher telling my mom "he puts the square peg in the round hole." In 1969 this class would be in 7th grade at the old Junior High which is now Pineywoods Community Academy, a charter school. It was the year Lufkin Schools finally integrated some 15 years after the Brown vs. The Board of Education Supreme Court decision. I would begin playing the tuba that year. We would be too young to really be good hippies and luckily too young to go to Vietnam. Somehow all these things were good things for us and we came through it to be the class of 1975.
Just the other day I related the story of the square peg in the round hole to my wife. She said "You still do that." I also still play the tuba. I have a job that square peg in the round hole thinkers do well in. Sometimes I even take the tuba to work when it's some one's birthday and I play "Happy Birthday" for them or maybe at the Christmas party I make my daughter Mary dress as an elf and play drums while we do drum and tuba Christmas songs.
So all these years after Peter Pan, after High School, after all this tuba playing and self examination of blog writing we come on down to what makes us what we are. I have been guilty of not keeping up with many those people in the photo even when some of them are right here in town with me. Somehow I realized this weekend that the times with those people are a part of me and made me.
There is talk of getting back together in five years. Who knows how many will be able to do that. Glad I did it this year. As they say, "thanks for the memories."
Labels: Happy birthday, sensitive
posted by Carl at 5:05 PM
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