If I can ask…
Do you have any favorite moments, friends or teachers from the high-school phase?
What was your favorite subject? What did you enjoy at that time?
For me it wasn’t the academics but rather the whole culture of the 60’s carrying over into the 70’s.
While there were the distractions of various inebriates for the times, there were also new thought formats and the small beginnings of spiritual and philosophical yearnings for me.
And of course there was the silliness of being a ‘youthful inexperienced male’, floundering about trying to figure out and come to terms with sexuality and what I was supposed to do with all that new information – and how to apply it. But while that aspect was clearly evident, it was not paramount.
In retrospect, I was like a tourist, constantly amazed by the macro/micro of what was going on beyond Chateauguay and Montreal and then in school as a melting pot. It was almost voyeuristic, in that I spent much time simply watching everyone – from the ‘glass hallway gang’, ‘orchard gang’, pines gang, Parkview gang, Colonia gang, Seigniory Park gang,Terrace gang, Heights gang-Canoe Club or Tennis Club, West End gang, Woodlands-Lery-Maple Grove and Beauharnois gangs to the Kahnawakero:no, to the teachers, -to each individual and how everyday, someone was either newly wearing make-up and looking more grown up, filling out, growing taller.
And the various behaviors displayed overtly or by default; those who were “out there” and those who chose to hang back. I had friends and acquaintances in most camps. It was all so much like Alice in Wonderland. But I just loved it. I became very much alive at that point –at least consciously aware of differences and yet sameness, in our struggle as a 'species' being.
If you have ever read Daemian by Hermann Hess, a story of a child becoming an adult- stepping over the line, out of the magic circle of family into the darker worlds- ‘on one’s own like a complete unknown’ -different and more subtle shades of gray; light melding inextricably with darkness. This was our turbulent birth via high-school into the outer older reality.
I have no blanks. I remember every “trip”physical, metaphysical or other - along with every memory of drinking too much or mixing wine with beer and ending up praying and trying to bargain with a porcelain god, "Please, I'll never do this again"... –if he/she/it would only make this retching stop or just get it the heck over with.
This is one aspect of 'the journey’ many of us passed through in youth and hopefully, came out the other side. We all know of some who, tragically, did not.
Now that I have emerged to who I am many years later, perhaps weathered by travel and life, I would love to see you and everyone – if only one last time. I want to look at you, greet, shake hands, to meet you as the higher class of being you have become. Back then, we were all so young and incomplete. These days, it matters not what you do to get by, or what you have or have not achieved - it is simply who you are that counts.
I am so curious to see us all- now and take a group picture after the dinner. I know that picture will become one of my most cherished possessions. Why? Because we all have a common past; a beginning place. On that REUNION evening we shall complete yet another part of our voyage- on this ever spinning rock. And I believe that meeting –that re-union will be most significant - a psychic metaphor of completion - within each and every one of us. Those who do not attend will always somewhere within, -wonder...what if... and only have the subjective convenient wallet sized crumpled memory of a past gone by, in the shadows fading.
I can always have days of vacation to travel, visit friends, see cities, lie out on a beach, go camping, write my book, be with my wife and/or children who I love dearly.
But we will not likely have another reunion with old friends, all in one place,- who, older or younger, in and out of school, (playing road hockey, playing tennis, going to the pool, playing guitar, thumbing rides through the USA and Canada)- experienced the 60’s and 70’s and teachers and bullies, Love gained and lost, heart break and elation and varying distractions - seemingly all together by common locale -High School .
Life goes by quickly and this REUNION EXPERIENCE will never happen again for us. Every year there are more who die off. Our demographic is entering that void where our own children are having children, causing us to become grand parents.
I want or NEED to visit my past- make the Haj, my pilgrimage -if just one last time.
Let us not let fear or simple laziness let this slip by.
You and all those who attend will cause the closest thing to TIME TRAVEL we ever will experience. I am so excited by seeing you and everyone else listed on the Alumni site. Do you realize how significant you are-(yes you!) to the rest of us? You were there –part of that dream – part of that fabric- and, yes, for some, it may have been a nightmare. It’s time to put some reality to it -exorcise it. Let us wake up for one unique moment, once more in time –older, wiser – wonderful people to behold! Come on down -one last time –then let us part with a completed circle of light -within.
Let the circle
be unbroken
by and by…
Pictured above - The Orchard Gang.
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