I got a notice for a high school reunion the other day.
Forty-five years!
As my darling wife of thirty-nine of those would say, “That’s almost forty!”
I wouldn’t have thought too much about the amount of time that has passed since my days at good old Southeast High until Classmates.com contacted us about trying out their website.
Sounded like fun so we said yes, and then started figuring just how long it had been since we graduated.
Veronica seemed to feel that the five years between us gave her some room for poking fun, but I thought it might give me a chance to catch up with some old friends and reacquaint with acquaintances before the big reunion.
I jumped online and made a profile.
It was simple; I just uploaded a current photo (and an old one, just to remind people what I used to look like) and wrote a little bit about what has happened in my life over all those years.
While I was going through my old pictures I found a few that I knew I should keep in some special way. The best thing I could think of was to have them made into canvas prints that will last a lifetime.
After that, I entered my school and graduating class and, viola!
Up popped my Golden Buffaloes yearbook.
I immediately remembered the cover and the name, Hoofbeats.
I could look through it online, but there was also an offer to buy a hard copy of the yearbook if I wanted one.
Of course, the first thing I did was look up my yearbook picture… O. M. G.!
Well, what can I say; it was the seventies after all, as if that made it okay to walk around with hair like that.
As I continued paging through the book, I found myself reminiscing down memory lane.
I looked up my favorite teacher, Mr. Hodges, who we always called Hodgy-baby.
I had also forgotten that our Golden Buffaloes won the State Championship in football my senior year.
Digging deeper, I found a picture of myself where I didn’t look like a complete geek.
It even looked like I might have been studying.
No, wait, on closer inspection it looks as though I might be asleep in an upright position.
A more likely scenario if my memory serves.
By now I was pretty much hooked, and everything I had been doing was free of charge, but by upgrading to a Classmates+ membership I could really start connecting with my old friends.
This way I could leave messages, share pictures, and get email updates to see who had visited my profile.
I browsed through and left a number of hellos along the way. It’s so easy to find old friends since you can search by maiden name.
That’s how I found my old best friend’s girlfriend, who is now his wife.
I had lost touch with them years ago so I wrote her a message. After a few days I got an email saying that she had replied. So I logged on and we conversed several times over the next few days through the website.
Now that we have caught up, we plan to meet in person next time we are in their hometown.
That experience got me thinking about my own high school sweetheart—the four of us were thick as thieves back in the day—but she was a class ahead of me so wasn’t in my yearbook.
That’s when I noticed that I could see books from other years too, so I looked back one year and found my girlfriend in the class of ’76.
Then it hit me—my chance for redemption! Perhaps my junior year picture was not as pathetic as my senior photo. No such luck.
That seventies hair was every bit as bad, if not worse, in this one.
That got me thinking, if ever there was a quintessential picture of bad hair and silly seventies-style outfits it was my prom photo.
My tux was an absolute classic—at least that’s the way I remember it. I know there were pictures, I had seen them long ago.
I don’t know if I ever had a copy, if I did it is long lost like our adolescent puppy love.
But maybe, just maybe she had kept one—no doubt purely for the comedy.
So I sent a message just to say hi and she replied. We caught up with each other (sounded like we both ended up with the right person after all) and then I asked if she had any pictures of us, especially ones featuring my hideous tuxedo.
In no time at all she sent several, including the two above and the game show host monstrosity below.
Along with a note teasing, “Enjoy the ribbing from your kids.”
She should have saved it for blackmail purposes.
David, GypsyNester.com
Thanks to Classmates.com for providing access and compensation for this hysterical blast from the past! As always, all opinions are our own—including the commentary on my horrible 70s clothing choices!
YOUR TURN: Was I stylin’ or what? Tell us your favorite blast-from-the-past reunion story!
