just wondering if yours was a bummer, I have one to go to sometime this september.  I had thought it would be a bummer, but finding out who's gonna show up, seems as though it's gonna be a blast! ;)

I graduated 10 years ago and it turns out our school doesn't have a reunion.  Our senior class was over 1,000--figured we would have had one. Kind of a bummer as there were some people I would have liked to see again. Oh well.  Have a blast at yours, Rebs! :)

I'm the reason my class even had a 10yr reunion. My class is notorious for being lackadaisical and generally disorganized. We garnered that reputation mostly from the actions (or lack thereof) of our class officers and self-appointed leaders. So yay for the 90% who got pigeonholed because of the idiotic 10%. Anyway, I had been asking around about the planning of the 10yr reunion and found that nobody was taking up the cause (usually reunions are planned by your senior class officers). So I rallied a couple of good friends and we formed a committee and did it ourselves.

Funny enough, about five months before the reunion, our class president finally poked her head up and was like "Wha-? Party? I'M SO IN!" and ended up taking over the rest of the planning. She changed the venue to suit her personal taste, upped the ticket price, and scared off over half of the people who'd already verbally committed to attending. Most people couldn't justify spending $50 per person...which sounds reasonable until you looked at what it got you. A meal. That's it. An f'ing meal. To add anything else would have pushed the ticket price to upwards of $80 per person. Ugh. At the last minute us committee folks ponied up $1500 out-of-pocket and hired a DJ, and then I donated all the wine so that folks had at least a little free booze. Needless to say, I had LOW expectations of the reunion to match the LOW opinions I had of a lot of my classmates.

In the end...the reunion was a blast. We only had about 40 class members actually attend (out of a class of 200), with almost all of them bringing dates of some sort. Most everyone had been humbled a bit by life and weren't as bad as they'd been in high school. And apparently I won the award for Life of the Party because I ended up drinking a lot of my free wine, dragged people onto the (empty at the time) dance floor, and eventually ended up sprawled on the floor in front of the bar, declaring "I'm the first man down!" Naturally, I remember none of this.  The only dark spot of the evening was when Ms Class President stood up to give a short speech and thanked all of the committee members...except me. Stupid whore. Oh well...everyone knew how much work I did and that's all that mattered. Didn't need her kudos anyhow.

So yeah! That's my blathering reunion tale. I originally envisioned a very Romy & Michele-like reunion but alas, no Alan Cumming arriving in his helicopter to come steal me away. Le *sigh*

Our 15yr mark is coming up in '08. I don't even know that I care to try and put something together, though my friend Debbie keeps bringing it up. I think just putting out an invite to everyone to gather at a local bar (maybe see if the bar will give us a small discount on well drinks or something) for a few hours one night would suffice. I grew up in a hick town, so we don't really require much except hay bales and beer. Yahuh.

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

I didn't get to go to mine, as it was right after I moved out West, but my friends who went seemed to have a good time.  I was called from the reunion, and got to talk to some folks who had travelled out to it.  I actually felt it was just too bad I couldn't make it.

-cg

I went to my 10 year reunion which was an absolute blast. The coordinator planned a casual reunion at the park during the summer and another formal one in October with Homecoming etc. Deanne and I had a great time. The interesting thing about them was those of us who moved away from our shitty hometown were relatively happy and content with life. The one's who stayed were friggin' miserable.

I missed my 20th Reunion thanks to the damn Army. (My unit was preparing for deployment). Instead of fun I got to spend the month of October at Fort Irwin, California with daytime temps of over 105 degrees.

Mine might be next year.   But not a single soul from my high school knows where I am.  Having graduated early, I wonder if they'd even invite me if they did have my contact info.
I always hung out with the kids in the grades ahead of me, anyway.  

I had mine some years ago. A long time friend of mine who I met at school and me were the only men, the rest: 20 or 30 girls...

As you may have guessed it was....interesting. Actually it was kind of boring, the usual dinner, drinks, etc. but all the persons from high school who I didn't want to see at all were guys so...

Yeah, that's how I was too. I hung out with people either in the grades ahead of me or the grades behind me because I had such disdain for the bulk of my own class. They really were a bunch of asshole twits. I had a little group of friends in my grade...maybe about ten people...but that was it. So our reunion was a bit weird for me. But I made it a party for myself anyhow because I worked so hard on it.

I made sure I put myself in charge of tracking down and inviting classmates because I could see the snobby popular twits deciding not to invite certain people, and that would piss me off. So we invited people who never graduated or graduated early. I mean, they were part of the class! We even sent invites to people who moved away during their tenure at DHS, in case they wanted to reconnect with old pals. The only bummer was that there were three people whom I really really wanted to track down because they were good people whom I would have loved to reconnect with. But they were literally untraceable unless I hired a PI, and I couldn't afford that at the time. Oh well...

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

Amanda,

        Deanne had the situation with "Snobby twit invites". For her 10 year reunion, The organizer had "private party's" throughout Homecoming week culminating in the formal dinner. The parties were nothing more than a smoke screen for snobby pricks and assholes to relive high school with elitist attitudes. The formal dinner was held in a facility much like the "Twin Peaks Town Hall" with casino tables. Seriously, It made "The Barn" look like the Salish.  The formal dinner was an absolute disaster and dissapointing beyond belief.  

        Deanne was so heartbroken she tore up her invitation for her 20 year reunion. A friend from high school sent her some pictures of what she missed. The pictures looked like an NASCAR watching party. You might be a redneck if.......

Deanne and I are originally from the Dallas area. We went to the same high school and graduated 2 years apart. But the people we went to school with are about 200 years apart. My class reunion was well organized, classy and provided many great memories. Deanne's reunion required therapy.  

I'm hoping my class will have a 25th reunion. I missed number 20 (damn Army)

I never got the invite to our 10 year reunion.  I was told that they couldn't find my address.  I live a full block from our high school...I can even hear the band playing at football games from my back yard.

I thought our 15th was great.  Got to catch up with old friends, and had nice conversations with people who weren't exactly friends in high school. 

I left my hometown as soon as I graduated and never looked back. The accident of having spent a few years locked in a high school classroom with teens whose parents lived in the same vicinity where my parents had set up stakes was just not enough draw to drag me back. I counted down the days of each school year on my notebook cover like a prisoner carving it into the cell wall.

Now it's not that high school was horrible or traumatizing. Not at all. I was a good student. I enjoyed some of my classes. I took part in a few extracurricular activities and had a circle of friends. But looking back on it, my primary recollection is one of a deadening boredom. Why do I have to be stuck in this place? It's just that I never felt a kinship to the place nor to my classmates at North Farmington HS. I knew with a certainty that as soon as I was old enough I would move on. Seriously I felt like I was serving a sentence.

The one guy from my class of 300 students I would have had an interest in seeing died in Vietnam. It was during the planning stages of a 40 year reunion when someone told me what happened. I knew he was killed but always figured it was a battle death. Rather I was told he tried to attack an officer who in turn shot and killed him. Echoes of Full Metal Jacket? I would like to know the full story of what happened to Steve Kinghorn but don't think the high school reunion is the place where that truth might be uncovered.

So, I doubt I'll ever go to a high school reunion though I did accompany David to his 20th reunion. It was more like a "Michele Lee, This Is Your Life!" party though. Every couple of years he meets with his high school club mates. One of the organizers is "Lumpy" from Leave it to Beaver. He just can't get enough of reliving high school.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Apparently the "Farmington" district of The Shield is fictional but supposedly set in Los Angeles, so no. Not my former hood. Not my Farmington. Eddie Haskell is a retired vice squad cop. Still alive and those rumors about him having been a porn star are untrue. Gertrude was David's mother's name. Frank never called him anything but "Dave" as he remembers it. Farmington, Michigan is a suburb of Detroit. There are many Farmingtons in the US though -- Iowa, Maine, Missouri, New Mexico, to name a few. MC5 - never was a fan but knew them (though my sis and John Neff knew them better) and watched them perform on countless occasions. Usually with Iggy and the Stooges. You're right.  I had already graduated from high school by then. But I was standing just below the stage at Woodstock when Abby Hoffman was knocked down by Pete Townshend for charging the stage to shout "Free John Sinclair!" Funny stuff. I didn't see anyone from my high school there.

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Mine was in November. I did get an invite. I'm certain one of two people who found me on myspace gave me away. I already had plane tickets to Vancouver, but I was kind of tempted. Just for the surreality factor: Everyone as caricatures of their high school selves, on their way to 30 and stranger than ever ... *shudder* Browsing Facebook made me decide that those years should stay in a vacuum.

I finally saw photographic evidence that my high school sweetheart- the one person I'd like to sit down again with- married this girl who was always a horrible bitch to me and they have a kid. That's really messing with me.

Gah. F*ck high school. It's a miracle I survived it.

for mine, they contacted folks who left our class in 9th grade (and a few even showed up), so you never know

rebel: i had a ton of fun at mine. then again i've lost a decent amount of weight since then, pull down a real salary at a good company, and had a tailored pinstriped suit to wear. :) if you're not happy enough with your life to explain it over and over it might be more anxiety than its worth

wooooooo double post reuinion in 10 years!

Yeah, that was part of it. Sure, it's fun to rub not having really aged and not being trapped in a soul-killing career and/or domestic situation in people's faces, but hanging onto my freedom is all I really have to show for the past 10.

lol

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

eh, the grass is always greener. the folks with kids would kill to be you a lot of the time

i'm not trying to get into some lameass "i'm sooo happy" contest because that's not really where i'm at, but i think it makes sense to go if you're satisfied with where you're at, not where anyone else thinks you're at. i think the best reason to go is to see people, or even one person. i was really on the fence about going, but it turned out that one really cool person i'd lost touch with was showing up, and that made it all worth it. we just hung out and got snarky and it was great. then i got too drunk and told a woman that all i remembered about her was that someone put a spider in her hair in 8th grade. and bought another one a drink as a "thank you for the years of eye candy"

i've gotta stop going places