I Went to My High School Reunion and Lived to Tell

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A few weeks ago, I wrote about attending my high school reunion and what I didn’t plan to do beforehand. That post received a surprisingly positive response, as well as numerous requests for a follow-up post. Mostly because you wanted to know if I told anyone that I trained hamsters in my basement.

Sorry to disappoint you...

I did, however, tell someone I invented post-its, to which they responded, ROMY AND MICHELE!! Then I opened mouth kissed them (no I didn’t).

So, change of plans during the week of the reunion, I decided to bring my mom along! My mom hadn’t visited Ohio in a while, so we planned a girls’ trip to make up for it.

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We talked for the entire seven-hour drive to Ohio and back, with the only break coming when I took a quick nap on the way home because I am apparently too old to attend high school reunions.

We drove through old neighborhoods, visited my mom’s childhood farm, and she told me stories I’d already heard and some I hadn’t; I got to see the funeral home (now just a house) where my grandfather’s funeral was held (something I’d never seen even when I lived there); and, most importantly, we went to see my grandparents (my mom’s parents).

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I used to visit this cemetery with my mom and my grandmother when I was younger. My grandfather died while my mother was in college, so I never met him, but I feel as if I know him through the stories my mother and grandmother have told me over the years, as well as the cemetery visits.

Taking water from a nearby spigot and planting flowers by his (now their) grave; visiting on Memorial Day to honor him with a flag; walking around the cemetery and seeing familiar names; names that now appear on street signs in the neighboring town.

We know our loved ones aren’t “there,” but it’s still nice to have a place where we can connect with them. A physical memorial on Earth located near where they lived, worked, and died. For some strange reason, I feel right at home every time I visit. Seeing my grandparents’ names etched in marble and sitting in the same spot where I was a child gives me a sense of safety.

They existed, were significant, and had meaning.

This cemetery contains the graves of several family members, such as aunts, uncles, and great-grandparents. So, like the worst family reunion ever, we visit everyone and go from grave to grave.

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“Umm, I have that exact heart in my garden,” I said to my mom.

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I’ve had it for so long that I don’t remember where I got it. If you know me, you know how much I love things like this; I nearly squealed. Some may consider it a coincidence, but I will always believe it is not.

I promise we did not spend the entire weekend at the cemetery.

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We enjoyed a girls’ night out with family and friends, including margaritas and ice cream at an old favorite. There’s something so comforting about sitting in a restaurant where I used to eat as a teenager.

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My brother’s first job was at this small ice cream shop, which is directly across the street from the nursing home where my mother worked the last year we lived in Ohio.

A former classmate who worked at the same nursing home told me a funny story about how my mom tried to save his job in 1988 because he wanted to skip work on Senior Ditch Day, which was approaching and for which he was scheduled. He lost his job even after her unsuccessful efforts on his behalf, but he will never forget her kindness.

He’s a minister now. 

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I forgot to unplug the cooler charging in the back before going to bed due to exhaustion from the previous night’s fun and the seven-hour drive with only three hours of sleep.

Thank God my cousin’s husband was nearby to assist with jump starting my car.

Before going to my friend’s house to set up for the reunion, he instructed me to drive around for a while to let the battery charge up.

IF I HAVE TO.

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To make a long story short, my third-grade teacher was physically and mentally abusive to her students. I couldn’t return to the school for years due to the horrible memories.

I missed so much school during third grade that I almost had to repeat it because I was so frightened of her. I vomited every morning, and if I didn’t, I’d vomit at school and end up in the nurses’ office.

I’m still traumatized by that evil human. I later learned that the school district was unable to get rid of her. Due to tenure.

During our reunion, we visited the schools we attended, including three elementary schools, a junior high, and a high school. The reunion was held at the end of the day in our old high school. 

I was overjoyed at the prospect of revisiting old schools because I hadn’t been to most of them in over 35 years. Except for this building. I only spent one year there, in third grade.

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We all wondered during the tour if we went to school in prison because our schools were so old and decrepit. I know it’s been 35 years or so, but they were just as bad back then.

When I returned home from the reunion, I experienced my first full-blown panic attack. I awoke from a dead sleep with the sensation of being suffocated. It was horrible; I was gasping for air and crying.

Side note: I found my third-grade teacher’s obituary from 2012 online, which stated that her husband was a minister and that she was a “faithful” and “involved” churchgoer.

Moving on…

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My old junior high was a much better experience because I was a good 5,000 feet from Central Elementary.

See? PRISON.  I mean, just look:

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By the way, those prison bathrooms had very short doors. Creepy considering that when you are in junior-middle school you are GROWING TALLER.

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Except for me. I look like I am in fifth grade here. I am actually in seventh grade. I feel like third grade stunted my growth.

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The next stop on our tour was the classroom where I got my first period! I remember wearing white pants and a Esprit sweatshirt when I “became a woman” in the prison bathroom.

That sounds dirtier than what I wanted it to.

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Every breath you take, every move you make, every bond you break, every step you take, Central Elementary will be watching you. 

That up there was my art room in 7th grade.

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Fun fact- The Shawshank Redemption was filmed about 15 miles from my school and in and around the county I grew up in.

So when we were touring the schools, we wondered if some of the scenes were filmed IN our junior high.

Case in point:

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So, shall we get to the good stuff? I was walking with a lovely group of former classmates around the junior high when we came around the corner and noticed some other classmates surrounding the woman above.

My former classmate says to me, “Kari, look who’s here!”

Of course, I had no idea who it was until someone mentioned Mrs. Nye, our sixth-grade teacher. Mrs. Nye was the perfect teacher for me. Laid back, but nice. I didn’t realize it until the ride home but seeing Mrs. Nye was just what I needed on this emotionally charged stroll down memory lane.

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I’m never ready for a picture, even when I should be, but I really enjoyed this, and seeing Mrs. Nye again was probably the highlight of the reunion for me.

Teachers simply don’t realize how much influence they have over both positive and negative childhood memories.

And, after finishing the ninth circle of hell at Central, I choose to remember the good. I wrote in her yearbook on the day of the reunion, “I am who I am today because of you.”

She doesn’t read my blog so she will take that as a compliment. 

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I hadn’t been back to my high school since June of 1988. It’s funny how I could not WAIT to get the hell out of that place, and now I couldn’t WAIT to get back in.

Partly because this building will not be here in five years (they’re tearing it down), mostly because of the people who were going to fill it that evening.

It’s funny how memories can do that to me; how smells of the wax they use on the floors can bring me back to freshman year gym class or how the smell of the biology lab can bring me back to 10th-grade frog dissection.

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Entering my high school cafeteria to set up for the reunion, I immediately remembered eating tuna salad sandwiches, Fritos, and orange drink every single day during my senior year. What do they call that? Being in a place brings back more memories than talking about it.

The lack of bragging was the most noticeable difference between the 30-year and 10-year reunions. This time, I felt like most people were simply happy to see each other. I feel like this will increase with each reunion we are lucky enough to make it to.

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It’s funny, a lot of people didn’t recognize me at first. I hadn’t been to a reunion since our ten-year in 1998, so it didn’t really surprise me but over the course of several hours I started to realize why.

At the reunion I was confident, making jokes, and really happy.

I am quite positive that in my years at the high school, that part of me came out a lot less in four years than it did in four hours that evening. I wasn’t brooding and sullen in high school, but I wasn’t me either.

I didn’t have the confidence that years of really living life can give to you. I was boxed in by what others thought of me, by my anxiety, and the choices that anxiety brought with it.

I also didn’t have glasses, which when I took them off at the end of the night, I got so many “OH GOD NOW I REMEMBER YOU NOW!!”

Maybe I am not as evolved as I’d like to think I am. 

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I also didn’t have this chick.

God, I love her.

She essentially planned the entire reunion by herself, with some minimal help from myself and really, a couple others.

We were only acquaintances in high school, but this entire day made me wonder what I would have been like if we had been friends back then.

Maybe the same, maybe different. It makes you realize that sometimes, as a parent, you can try really hard to shape your kids but at the end of the day, it’s who they surround themselves with that makes them who they are.

Maybe not.

All I know is that I’m glad I went to the reunion, and maybe I’ll go again in five years.

If I want to brag about it, I need to get those hamsters really well-trained.