For the 22-plus years I have written this weekly column I have focused mainly on food and travel. Occasionally I have ventured into family stories, especially when my kids were young and there was a lot of material to mine.
I have
written often about something I call the Five Fs. The Five Fs are nothing more
than a prioritization of the things that matter to me the most. It took me 40
years to learn how to rank life’s most important aspects, but I’ve spent the
past 20 years trying to do my best to live out that concept.
The Five Fs are— in order— faith, family, friends, food, and fun. My problem
for a good portion of my life is that I was looking for fun in a most of the
wrong places. Fun was at the top of my priority list. Once I started ranking
things differently, I learned that fun doesn’t have to be sought out or manufactured,
it just happens. If my spiritual self is covered and my family is prioritized,
I enjoy my friendships even more. And friendships are what have me vibrating on
a higher frequency today.
Yesterday
I attended a class reunion for all grades at my junior high/high school. It was
a perfect day. It’s an event that has been in the works for several years. We
originally scheduled it for May 2020, but that obviously didn’t stand. I believe
it was rescheduled again, and then yesterday was the third rescheduling, and the
day we finally pulled it off.
For grades
6-12 I attended a small, private school that was probably formed for all the wrong
reasons, but that’s a different column for a different day. My grandmother and
uncle helped pay the tuition and my mom worked there. Today I want to celebrate
friendships more than politics.
If a
glass-half-empty person took a broad, bird’s-eye view of my childhood, he or
she could probably make a negative and melodramatic case of a childhood filled
with challenges and hardships. My father died when I was very young. I was
raised by a single mom who brought my brother and me up on an art teacher’s
salary. I started working to earn money at 12-years old. I did yard work, I
worked for a short time as a janitor at my school, and I worked full time all
through high school as a radio station disc jockey. I was the poster child for
attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity and had the concentration of a
gnat. We didn’t have a lot of money to do extra things and take vacations. But
I feel blessed with the childhood I had. Truly blessed. My glass is more than
half full, it’s brimming over. When I dig deep into why I feel so fortunate, it’s
due to the depth and breadth of the friends I have known.
I wouldn’t
trade my childhood with anyone.
Yesterday,
that rang true. We met in the old gymnasium, which has been used as a storage
facility for the past several decades. It was the first time I had spent any meaningful
time on that campus since my graduation ceremony in May of 1979. Actually, it’s
not even a campus any longer. There are businesses built where the football and
baseball fields used to be and both classroom buildings are some type of
housing these days. But the gym is still mostly intact and that is where the
reunion was held.
I grew up
in a unique place and at a perfect time. The late 1960s and the entire decade
of the 1970s still held a little innocence left over from the post-WWII years,
but there was also another war raging which gave the times and the music that
came from those times a seriousness and urgency that was woven throughout the decade.
It was still a time when doors were left unlocked and there were only three
channels on the television (four if you had a good antennae).
I spent
every day with my friends in the neighborhood and at school. There is a
particular bond that is formed in childhood friendships that one rarely
experiences when meeting people later in life. It’s something that works so
magically that I might not see someone for 20 years, and within minutes we pick
up exactly where we left off.
Some of
the people at the reunion I hadn’t seen in over 40 years. But I still felt an immediate
connection. School is a hard thing for a kid. I think we develop a childhood
version of a bunker mentality that forms a bond that lasts for decades.
There has
always been something deep inside me that wants to stay connected with my
childhood friends. This reunion was good medicine as we’re nearing the end of a
challenging time in world history.
Someone put together a memorial display of all the classmates who had passed
away. Some were very young and left us years ago. One died a few weeks ago. I
spent a good bit of time looking at the photographs of classmates that had
passed. It made me appreciate, even more, those of us who are still here, and
made me recommit to stay in touch with them in the coming years.
Switching
gears to the concept of fun. As I stated earlier, I used to look for fun in a
lot of the wrong places. What I eventually learned is that if a few of the Five
Fs are in place the fun automatically happens. It doesn’t have to be
manufactured. As I have grown older, I have tried to prioritize my life in a
healthier manner. For decades the most important things in my life were
material and monetary things. It took me a long time to learn that the things
that truly matter in life— the things that bring true happiness and joy— are the
spiritual and relational things.
Yesterday
was fun. And it was the best kind of fun. It was the fun that comes from relationships
that were forged decades earlier over football games and pep rallies and
lunchroom discussions and shared experiences as everyone tried to navigate the
road that was taking us from total dependence on our family to independence and
whatever the future held.
Onward.
Beeson Punch
1 46-oz can pineapple juice
1 small can frozen orange juice
1 small can frozen lemonade
1 quart ginger ale
17 comments:
The high school experience was so shitty that it pushed me into the military. Which ended up being the best thing to ever happen to me as "best" things go. IF I were to ever go to one of these shindigs........been invited and not interested. Besides, I know of most them these days and 60 % have nothing to brag about.
I’m the Copy and Paste King
Translation: I bring nothing to the table.
Graduated HS with a 3.8 GPA but didn't attend the ceremony. Wasn't gonna waste my day sitting in the sun. Worked that day and shortly afterwards, did what 10:08 did, entered military service.
At my tenth high school reunion, most were bragging of their success and bright future. From then on, virtually all had accepted their fate was not very rosy.
10:08 and 10:56 I'm guessing that your cranky presences was not missed by others at the gatherings.
11:16 : Actually I am well liked by most of my classmates and anyone I have ever been in contact with. Truth is, I really loath most people I meet because they are shallow closed minded terds but still treat them with respect. Even you.
While I've missed a few class reunions over the past 50 years, the ones that I could attend were enjoyable. As we get older, the reunions get better because we appreciate old friends more.
I recently attended my 50th high school reunion. Many former classmates are now dead, a couple of them are in long term care, others have significant health issues. Some of us, including myself, are healthy and strong. Over the decades I have observed that most of the cheerleaders and football team captains did not age well. Some of them are still stuck in high school mentality. The most interesting people are those who weren't popular in high school, have traveled the world, worked at interesting jobs, and moved on with their lives. I'm glad I attended.
My best friends today are a couple of women with whom I started the first grade back in 1960. We know pretty much everything about each other and would die in the trenches to help one another. We also laugh a lot, talk about old times, look at old photos, go out to eat, and share our joys and sorrows. Old friends are the best friends.
Last year marked 30 years since I graduated high school, and I guess because of covid, there was no reunion. I didn't go to my 10th or 20th year reunions, and I have no regrets. And as 11:16 AM suggests, I'm sure that I wasn't missed, which I could give 2 shits about.
What a narcissist.
@12:28 PM - I agree with you. I attended my 50th class reunion which was delayed by Covid. Most of the regular folks who were never voted as "Most Beautiful" or the other popularity contests did well in life. Many of the star athletes and the cheerleaders showed up and wanted to talk about certain football games that no one else remembered.
I graduated high school in 1998.
I went to a school i didn't want to attend and was surrounded by people i didn't want to hang out with except for a small handful. I have never attended a class reunion and probably never will. Do i regret that? No. I did attend my graduation ceremony, for what it was worth. I, also, joined the military and am very glad i made that choice.
Glad to see the above 12 comments. Makes me feel a hell of a lot better about myself.
I attended my 50th high school reunion a couple of years ago --- never been so glad to have been there. Had a chance to visit with one of my best friends growing up in elementary and high school, and since, who died only a few months later.
Saw friends that I had literally not seen since we graduated - one came down from Chatanooga to be there who was one of my best friends during high school who I had not seen since.
Visited with classmates that I had seen often over the past several years. And others that I saw only seldom. Friends that we agreed on lots of issues, others that we didn't. Friends that were closest of all, even after graduation - others that were not close but should have been.
Yes - faith, family, friends, food and fun are all parts of the equation, as RSJ says. Never have agreed with him more. And despite all the folks who above didn't get along with the ones they went to school with (which I didn't either - there were several at our reunion that I am sorry I didn't spend more time with seeing where they were in the world today, but we weren't that close back then, --- my loss) yall enjoy living your life today. It was four years ago that we had our 50th year reunion. I am looking forward to us doing it again at 55. Despite the fact that there are two (I hope not more) that will not be able to join us of our 67 from the class of 1967.
Thank you, RSJ. I appreciate your column, and its thoughts. To hell with these others that didn't get along with their others. Hell - I probably was also on the list of those they didn't like.
Nobody ever hung out with everybody in their high school class. For each of us there were maybe twenty other kids we were close to. So what? As 8:33 said, most were "people (we) didn't want to hang out with except for a small handful." Hey, that's true of every damn one of us. But what I have found in attending my 10th, 20th, 30th, 40th, and now 50th reunions is that it's great to see how damn well some of my classmates -- the ones I didn't hang with back then -- have turned out. Some of the late blossomers in my class have been the greatest success stories (and I'm not talking monetary success only). So go to your next high school reunion. You'll see a bunch of good kids who've done alright for themselves, and it'll make you proud.
A harmless little bagatelle of a piece, but, truly, RSJ? You just HAD to throw in that your school “was probably formed for the wrong reasons,” an aside that had absolutely nothing to do with your topic. Why do white people who were fortunate enough to have had access to a private school back then feel the need to apologize for it? I went to an Episcopal boarding school (as a day student), so was safely out of the fray a year or so before the public schools were effectively ruined. Because it was a “church-affiliated” institution, overseen by the diocese rather than the Citizens’ Council, nobody could, then or now, accuse my parents of (gasp! horror!) racism. But you’d best believe they were relieved and happy that I wasn’t part of the social experiment that necessitated the hasty formation of academies like Mr. SJ’s. But re: reunions. Some enjoy ‘em, some don’t…go or don’t, although it is fun to see who has gotten really fat over the decades, or has had obvious “work done.”
I was popular in High School and I am sorry to disappoint the folks above who clearly still have a chip on their shoulder...but, I did not not turn into Shrek.
I also did not feel the need to gloat about the less-popular classmates who aged more poorly than me.
9:48 : Lol, by what metric were you popular ? I was popular as well but it was because I was pure in my desire to not be like any cliq . So I was able to be friends with a wide range of folks. And as I said , really didn't care for any of them. Well, the loose and pretty classmates were great.
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