During the 4th of July weekend, my high school class celebrated its 50th anniversary. There were several reunion activities including a dinner-dance and a float in the Upper Arlington 4th of July parade. I was in Boston at that time, so couldn’t participate in these get-togethers.

Even before the Boston trip was on my schedule, I hesitated to commit to any reunion functions. That was partly because I feared few people would remember me. I had a decent senior year — debate team, two plays — but for the most part, I wasn’t widely known among the nearly 600 students in the Class of ’67. People might look at me and, notwithstanding a nametag, wonder “who is he?” But on reflection, I realized there was another, more complex reason for my reluctance. An experience I’ve had several times will clarify this reason.

I will be in some public place — a store, a park, a sports event, outside a theater. Suddenly, I will see a familiar face. Wow, I’ll think. There’s John or Joe or Susan from good old Upper Arlington High. He/she looks terrific. Then it will dawn on me. Of course “John” looks terrific because that isn’t John. That guy is no more than 30 years old. Wherever he is, John is 68, the same as me. True, of course, but here’s the thing. I’d like to keep remembering John as a young person and not as someone who has lost much of his hair and some of his hearing, as I have. In fact, part of me would like to keep all my UAHS classmates preserved in my memory as teenagers or, at most, as young adults. To see them as sexagenarians with all the associated infirmities of that age range might be unsettling, perhaps even depressing.

In the end, the trip to Boston made my participation in 50th reunion events a moot point. I did, however, accept an invitation to join the Class of ’67 Facebook page. That allowed me to see pictures taken at the reunion events and to re-acquaint myself with a good number of classmates who, despite my misgivings, did remember me. Some of those classmates went all the back to Barrington Road Elementary School when the hottest new technologies were transistor radios and color televisions. The photos showed people who don’t have the youth and vigor they had in 1967. Even more sobering was a special page dedicated to the 56 class members who have passed away. But the Facebook page opened the door for me to renew my friendship with several classmates. Their photos show them enjoying children and grandchildren, staying active, traveling, and doing other things that I do, too. I realized then that my classmates share more important things with me than hair and hearing loss. They started the journey of life at essentially the same time and place as I did. Although our  paths diverged,  we experienced happiness and sadness, victory and defeat, growth and understanding. And as of today, most of us are still standing and better able to appreciate what our school gave us than we ever could as teenagers.

The next reunion event will be a class 70th birthday party in 2019. I will try to attend.