Past Image versus Present Reality

What is it that makes a highschool reunion at once so enticing and yet so ominuos? Is it the nostalgia to touch base with the past- to see what all the old buddies are up to? Or to simply see what they look like now compared to you?

I'm sure for men it is much more different than women. I cannot speak for women, so maybe if you happen to be a woman you can add to this and give me some feed back.

For me, I think of how I behaved, some of the things I said and I wish I can go back and change them. I know there's nothing I can do to change "my past image" in some people's minds of who they think I was. But at least I know if they met me as I am "all grown up", they would see and experience perhaps something better and carry away with them a better image and idea of who I am and what my capabilities are.

So, I think that if this is true of me, then surely it is true of others. Perhaps not all, but some. This is part of the spirit I approach the HSB 35 year Class of '72 and friends '71 and '73 (including those who graduated, those who did not, including those from '70 and '74 who want to join in).

Curiosity

I think I am also very curious to see you again. You who passed by in the hall, you who I may have stared at in Gym class as you did everything so well, or did not. You who achieved so much early on, you who stayed quiet and under the radar for the most part hanging out with a few friends.

I think of my old friend Barry Jones from way back even before grade seven when he and I, Steve Porier and a few others were all called down from class, lined up and given the strap. I used to tell people it was for "talking on the bus". As if!

How we howled and hooted! Our lunch was not our lunch. It was our missile collection for unwary passers by on Mcleod Street as our bus passed by. Well OK, I might have taken a bite of the apple before I winged it as we zoomed along Craik Street. Grade 7 -Wow. What an intro to high school.