The high school reunion was fun. I’m glad I went. I wish i brought lisa with. Dave at work brought up a good point. It would have enabled her to see into a part of my past life. So when I talk about so and so, she can attach a face and personality to it.
But I am disappointed by how many people that I WANTED to see didn’t show up. Rob Soucek, Rob Frey (understandably, cuz he’s in germany in the army), Dave Kooyenga, Dave McDonough, Scott Morrison, Thom Jousma, my brother Erik.
But there were a few people that I was happy to see. Like… Tony Diorio (now living in CHINA), Aaron Lewis (who gave me the low-down on Rob Soucek), Cindy Lindenmulder (erik took her to the prom), Mark Lichner.
As people say about reunions:
- Generally people were the same as in high school.
- But now you actually talked to people who you didn’t normally talk to in high school.
A few interesting observations:
- Of my class of 110, there were four couples that married people from my school (so eight people there inter-married)
- Of the people I talked to, there only about five single people.
- Most people were still very thin. Not many chunkers, as I was expecting.
I got there late. I thought it started at 6:30, but it started at 6:00pm. So when I arrived, there was a ton of people there, and it was quite intimidating at first, because I didn’t immediately recognize anyone. I went to a school that was primarily dutch, so alot of blondies. So a couple people Tony (with black hair) and Aaron (african american) stood out and I talked with them first. I was totally nervous beforehand. But it got better as the night went on.
Okay, the whole setup:
It was at a banquet hall and we had our own area. The banquet hall was nearby our school. People were dressed nicely. Some people in suits. Others in business casual. There were about 80 people there (based on the number of seats in the dining area)
So people talked around the bar for awhile. And then we had to go sit down for dinner. The seating arrangements were in the back of the room where nobody was standing. So nobody had claimed any seats yet but putting their jackets down. As everyone went there to sit down, it was quite ackward, because everyone was scoping out where to sit, thinking, “do i want to sit next to THEM?”
At each sitting, there was a blue book with everyone’s profile. Occupation, spouse, kids, high school memories, highlights of the past 10 years, and hobbies. They immediately started to serve dinner, but i was much more interested in the book instead of eating. I wanted to see if there was anyone really interesting that I would want to talk to. But nothing really stood out. The only really interesting profile was kara breems as she was an urban planner, but she was not there.
Then we played that “game” of who came here from the farthest. Who has the most kids. Who got married the earliest. And they gave silly prizes. Like the person who came here from the farthest got a gas tank and oil. Which is ironic, if you consider that if they came here from far away, that they flew here. And the airplane would not let them take a gas tank and oil on the plane.
Erik and Andrea would have won the “who got married the most recent”. Nobody there got married in 2003, or 2002. We had to dip into 2001 to find the most recent marriage. Quite odd considering that alot of the people there were married.
Then after dinner there was more small talking and stuff. Many people left early. I stayed 15 minutes past the closing time. Y’know, I’m there to talk to people. And chances are that I’ll never see ’em again. I should have plugged myself more as being available for freelance design. Hmpf. Oh well. I never liked to sell myself.