At the 10 year reunion, the guy voted most likely to succeed couldn't attend -- because he was in prison after being unsuccessful when he tried to embezzle a million bucks from the bank where he was working.
A handsome guy who looked like Christopher Reeve (Superman) strode in and the women were practically swooning -- then in shock when we found out back in high school, he was the nerdy, skiinny guy with a buzzcut hair style and very thick glasses due to his poor eyesight. Amazing what laser surgery, working out and growing up can do....
The prettiest cheerleader was now dowdy and fat with mousy brown hair. Since she was always snippy to everyone else there was a certain secret satisfaction in this...another cheerleader, who was the school's first black homecoming queen, had fulfilled her dream of becoming a doctor.
At the 20 year reunion, I was shocked when a kid who had bullied me came up and out of the blue, apologized. He said he felt bad for picking on me for being short and having curly hair...and noted that I was successful now and he was a loser working on an oil derrick and divorced. I wound up forgiving him and feeling sorry for the bully.
A big difference between the two reunions was that at the 10th, most people were trying to impress others and at least pretend success - dressing to the nines. By the20th, nobody cared, many were balding or had greying hair, and everyone was eager to talk even to people they hadn't known way back when.
By the 35th reunion, my best friend had died so it was very bittersweet. A lot of others were gone, too. My generation was the first to be hit by AIDs -- nobody had even heard of it in high school, but it killed a lot of the young men particularly, some quickly, others over the decades that followed. Others had fallen to cancer, freak accidents, drunk driving, suicide, and other assorted tragedies. My best friend from age 5 died in her sleep, after suffering with hepatitis C she got in a blood transfusion during surgery. i cried and cried, it hurt so much to be at a reunion without her there.
Still many of my dear friends I hadn't seen in 20 or 30 years of more made it there -- and my closest surviving friends looked great. Two gay guys had come out of the closet and were married, dapperly dressed. My second best friend was living in Vegas teaching dance and looked like a fashion model. Some others had simply been good moms raising their families. Nobody was famous, or infamous, but everyone was doing okay. Some were lost in time, and nobody could find them. I still wonder where they are.
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