Time Flies...

25 years ago...
2 1/2 decades ago...
A quarter of a century ago!
1983--the year I graduated. Yikes! The reality hit over the weekend...at my class reunion. I was one of 50 graduates from Mason City Newman High School. A handful of us toured the high school prior to our get together. I guess you would call it a "campus" now. In addition to the high school, they've also converted part of the building to a middle school, and built on a brand new elementary school, preschool, and daycare. Combination of healthy endowments and aggressive alumni fundraising. It's paid off. If we lived there, my kids would go there--without a doubt.
OK--so the reunion itself-- it was a blast! Loved seeing lifelong friends, and old classmates. 24 of 50 in attendance. Pretty decent, it you take into account that we threw it together in a few wks. Three highlights to share:
1) The star football player who dated the homecoming queen, who married a girl from the public high school, who drank heavily, (and still does) did drugs, got divorced, and was an alleged member of a KKK-type cult was there. He's unmarried. (Shocker!)
2) The relatively quiet, shy, seldom noticed, non-athlete, who God called upon her to live his life through her service as a "nun" teaching at a catholic grade school, who decided 5 years later that maybe this wasn't her "gig" so she "kicked the habit", who finally decided to become a pharmacist and shack up with her "life partner" was there. (She did not bring her wife).
3) The smart, sweet, beautiful, salutatorian of our class, who graduated from Drake Law school, married a lawyer, moved to California, and lives happily with her lawyer husband and three children in a more than modest home was there. She's still beautiful, charming, and smart. She's smart, I say, because she married a rich husband and because of that she doesn't have to work. What's really neat about her story is that she came from a rather disfunctional home. Both of her parents were alcoholics. In fact, her father died of alcoholism. It makes her success all the sweeter.
Those who didn't attend: the lesbian college basketball coach; the other lesbian who's occupation is unknown; the ob-gyn (he, who never dated girls in high school); the lieutenant colonel in the armed forces; & the friend who just had a baby (at age 43--yikes!).
We've had a reunion every five years. I've made it to every one. Enjoyed them all. It's interesting to see who grows up and who never does. I am thankful for one thing though--that I never married anyone in my class. Now I know why I never even DATED anyone seriously in my class. Although I get frustrated with my guy, Prug, I couldn't help but praise him that night, and tell him how much I appreciate what he's done with his life, how he's been a great husband and father, and how successful he has become in his profession. However, I know that if I was HIS classmate, I'm sure I wouldn't have dated HIM either--let alone MARRY him! He's so lucky!