My 50th High School Reunion

 

Leslie, Sheryl, and Jackie

My 50^th High School Reunion was Saturday May 21, 2022

I graduated in 1971.  So, if you were to do the arithmetic, it should have been last year 2021.  But, due to the bizarre Covid era from March of 2020 to whenever, it never really got planned.

It was January of 2021 and an OP-Ed in the Wall Street Journal titled, The Future Turns 50 This Year.  It inspired a bloggy bit, 1971 - 2021: 50 Years, which I posted on our Livonia Stevenson High School FB page.  My classmates commented on it and began to wonder if we were having a reunion or not.  A few intrepid classmates took it upon themselves and formed a committee.  The stalwarts were Jackie Snook, Leslie Hart, and Sheryl Bodine Walsh (apologies if I left anyone out).  They quickly and correctly deemed trying to have it in the Spring of 2021 would be too soon and decided to do a 50+1.  They set-up a Facebook page, planned a venue, sold tickets, and made it happen.

As stated, the Reunion was scheduled for May 21.  I was excited at the prospect of attending.  I had not really kept up with people from High School.  It would be amazing to reconnect and see what folks had done for the past fifty-one years.  Where did education and careers take them?  Where in the country and the world did they live?  We would share photos of children and grandchildren.  We would talk of hobbies and avocations.  And… we would just reminisce.

Honestly, I did not expect to want to attend as much as did.  As the date was set for May, I checked to see when my nieces twice Covid rescheduled wedding was.  I was told May 14.  The reunion was set for May 21.  It was all good, so I purchased two tickets. 

A month later, I learned that my nieces wedding was the same night.  Maybe I was given the wrong info, or most likely, I got it wrong.  Of course, my niece my was my priority.  But part of me was disappointed not to attend the reunion. 

While I missed it, the modern magic of social media compensated a bit.  There were a lot of pictures posted.  It looked like everyone had a wonderful time.  It was good to see the photos and how people have gracefully aged.  I wish I could have been there, but I was where I was supposed to be.  It has been nice reconnect with classmates on social media.  It would have been a nice cap to meet some of my classmates in person.

There was a short list of people that I would have loved to have seen.  These were folks that I should have stayed in touch with.  I wondered if they were going to be at the reunion.  A fair number of people were not on the attendee list.  I suppose they thought high school was a thing of the past and maybe not so relevant at this point in their lives.  I can certainly relate to that, as it was my attitude since I attended the 5^th year reunion in 1976.  I have not been back to one since.  I think high school is a distant memory for a fair number of us.  For some reason, and I attribute the WSJ article celebrating the pivotal year of 1971 some part for this, I was looking forward to this reunion. 

An app that was used to plan the reunion had a sadder side.  It reported the classmates that had passed on.  Some I was already aware of.  Jim Brissie passed away while we were still in High School.  Bruce Patterson died just after graduation.  Both of their passings were tragic.  Others passed on more recently.  I was sorry to learn that Cyndy MacIsaac, Bill Hildebrandt, Ron Hoekstra, and Steve Lowrey had all died as well.  I would have loved reconnecting with them.  The list of the deceased also included a Jeffery Kennedy.  There was, per the yearbook, only one male Kennedy in our class:  Jerry Kennedy.  He was listed as James in the yearbook.  I hope the name listed wasn’t Jerry, he was a good guy.

Even though I was unable to attend the reunion, it was good to connect and communicate with classmates on social media. 

If a 55^th or 60^th reunion is organized, I will try to make it, God willing.

I close this bloggy bit with a reference to a few other blog posts from reflecting on that time of my life.

• November 2008: Was it the Weirdest of Times?
• A Livonia State of Mind
• The Songs to Aging Children Project
• 1969

Robb Elementary School Shooting

 

How many times have we heard a grieving and devastating mother saying, “We can’t ever allow this to happen again.”  I just heard another, from Uvalde, TX, saying it again.

How many times has that grief-stricken plea gone unheeded?  How many times does this have to happen?  Why aren’t we all on the same page and doing whatever we have to do prevent kids being murdered in schools and people being killed in their places of worship, supermarkets, and other gathering places?  Why is this possibly a polarizing issue?  Why does the gun lobby have, led by the corrupt NRA, wield such power over our legislators?

There are simply too many guns in the wrong hands.  Gun violence incidents beyond these mass shootings are out of control.  And?  We do nothing about it. 

I thought we might actually do something after the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting on February 14, 2021 in Parkland, Florida.  There was an impressive movement led by students of Stoneman Douglas that, I am guessing, just petered off due to the collective deaf ears of Congress and the Florida legislature. 

We are in a repetitive cycle of being shocked, dismayed, and abhorred each time one of these mass shootings happens.  There are calls to do something.  Then, it dissipates.  It goes away.  People get back to their lives and nothing happens.  When the next shooting inevitably happens, the cycle begins anew.  This is crazy.  It speaks horribly of our country and our society. 

I am not against guns.  I own two.  I am not a hunter but enjoy target shooting.  I respect the notion of the Second Amendment: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”  But, let’s face it, that amendment was ratified in 1791 when muskets and flintlock pistols were the only personal arms.  It is a more densely populated country today with personal firearms that the crafters of the 2^nd Amendment were not even fathoming when they wrote and ratified that amendment.

President Biden said, “When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?” When indeed?  It is a complex problem and both sides are wrong.  I cannot imagine that we cannot figure this out if we united and seriously tackled the problem.  As I type this, one extreme is disparaging Biden, adamant about their right to bear arms like it was 1791 or the Wild West, and coming up with bizarre conspiracy theories that started after the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting (npr.org).  The other extreme wants to eliminate all guns which is equally absurd and has no chance of happening.  We cannot even limit the kind of guns that people have right to bear. 

Governor Abbot of Texas was asked if he supported any gun control laws.  He responded:

I know people like to try to oversimplify this. There are 'real gun laws' in NY. There are real gun laws in California.  I hate to say this but there are more people who were shot every weekend in Chicago than in schools in Texas.

He is right and wrong.  Gun violence and murder of every ilk needs to be addressed and solved.  No child should ever be murdered whether sitting in a classroom or a church by a mass shooter or just walking down the street or sitting on their porch by stray bullets from gang violence.  As The Everymom graphic says, “Parents should be able to send their children to school without having to worry about if they'll see them again.”  We have to fix this.    We cannot allow the amount of people killed by gun violence each year.  Our country has to be better than this.

 

 

Books of Matches

 

They used to be everywhere.  You could get them anywhere, mostly for free.  They advertised restaurants, stores, and almost any brand.  We had some made some made with the letter G on them and had them at our wedding.  If you didn’t have any, you would ask almost anyone, “Got a light” and they would most like have some in their pocket or purse.   Most folks had them around their house on counters or in drawers. 

Of course, if the title or the photo had not given it away, I am talking about the humble book of matches.  Wikipedia eloquently describes them:

A matchbook is a small paperboard folder (known as a matchcover) enclosing a quantity of matches and having a coarse striking surface on the exterior. The folder is opened to access the matches, which are attached in a comb-like arrangement and must be torn away before use in contrast to a matchbox where the matches are loosely packed in the interior tray.

In my last post, A First Real Day of Spring, my buddy Gian and I almost did not smoke cigars because there were no matches or lighters to be found.  It made me realize,

Back in the 70s and 80s in Detroit, our band, The Johnites, used to play for a lot of weddings.  Every wedding we went to I would take a book or two of matches with the bride and grooms names with the date of the wedding.  I had the idea to keep them as a memento and record of all hundred or so weddings we played for.  I bought a poster board and dutifully mounted like ten match book covers… and then lost interest.  I probably should have just thrown them all in a jar or kept a log book.  I kind of wish I had kept up with my poster, it would be a nice memento to look at and reminisce.  The memories will have to do.

Others I know did keep all the matchbooks of the restaurants they went to in large brandy snifter glasses.  It was usually on a coffee table and, even more so, on a bar in the finished basement or rec room.  I don’t recall seeing that in anybody’s home in, probably in decades.

Nowadays, if you ask someone for a light, you will probably hear “Sorry…”  If they have a light, they will probably offer up a throwaway lighter or, if cigar smoking is involved, one of those welding torch butane lighters that are de riguer with cigar smokers.

A search on Amazon revealed that the common book of matches is still available and reasonably priced.  100 plain white match books can be had for $7.85.  If you want color and custom printing (mostly wedding themed), 50 match books could had for $50.  If I were ever, in a fit of nostalgia, buy match books, I would go for the 100 for $7.85 and decorate them with Sharpies.

I suppose I could blog about ash trays and how virtually no one has them in their homes these days.  But it would read very much like this one that we can easily file under the “Blog About Nothing” category.

A Real First Day of Spring

 

Photo by Gianfranco

It has been a cold and rainy Spring this year.  In March and April, we had four days in which the temperature was at least 70 and for three of those days it rained.

Thursday, April 21^st, was beautiful.  It was a Thursday, a day when I am on campus from early morning until I about 3 pm.  It was sunny, the daffodils all around campus were fully bloomed, and the everyone was out and about enjoying the day.  It is the kind of first day of Spring you live for in the Midwest.  One is never sure if it going to be in a globally warming February or, more likely, in March or April.

My professor buddy, Gianfranco Farrugia and I, decided to get out of the office and enjoy the weather.  We decided to take a walk, smoke a cigar, and wax eloquent about life and our noble profession.  We stepped out of offices and lit up our cigars.  We realized just how beautiful it was outside.  We began our walk in the direction of what sounded like live jazz music.

We did not have to walk far.  In a student house less than a half-block from our office, students had set up a few amps, microphones, and a drum set and were playing perfect music for such a day.  We stopped to listen, and never left.  We, leaning on the fence, took in the very good and most entertaining music, puffed on our cigars, and enjoyed the day. 

Other students on their way to or from class or on their way to baseball or tennis practice all stopped and enjoyed the music.  I knew many of the students passing by, but I didn’t know the musicians as none of them were business majors.  Luckily, another student, Christian Morey hanging out with the backyard musicians, told me who they were:

• Seamus Smith – drums  
• Brian Chindblom – lead guitarist and singer
• Caleb Borwon – bass and singer
• Alfredo Martinez – trombone 

One student, Thomas Schmidt, walking back from class stopped and said, “Sounds great.  Should I get my sax?”  Of course, they said yes.  Thomas returned in a few minutes and joined the group making what was good and entertaining even better.

I learned Alfredo was majoring in music.  The others were in other fields but had their own band and played around town at clubs performing both covers and compositions of their own.  I loved their jazzy easy listening style.  The music was perfectly matched for this first spring day. 

It was wonderful.  While we were listening to the music, enjoying the amazing weather, and watching and greeting our students who strolled by, Gian and I talked about our own college days.  We both were raised and went to school in Midwest, we recalled those halcyon days when the school year was nearing the end and we were out and about enjoying a day just as we are doing a half-century later as these students were creating their own memories.

As a musician, as much as I have appreciated the paying gigs, some of the best memories are the impromptu sessions with my friends, where we just played for our own enjoyment and fun.  I loved that about these North Parkers were doing the same, and to quote Joni Mitchell, “playing real good for free.”