By the way, Kodachrome Basin State Park, located about 20 miles southeast of Bryce Canyon was named after the film. Back in 1948, an expedition from the National Geographic Society named the area because of the color and beauty they found there.

Anyway, to the point – the first two lines of that Paul Simon song are: “When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school; It’s a wonder I can think at all.” That’s pretty harsh, I’d say. But I guess he learned enough. Simon’s net worth is $200 million according to Google.

I’ve been thinking lately about how people in general feel about their high school days. The reason for this is that I was co-chair of my 55th high school reunion on the 5th of July .

My fellow co-chair was a classmate who lives in Anchorage, Alaska. She and I had a fun, memorable time planning things. We used to be geography knowledge competitors in elementary school.

It soon became clear that what seemed like a simple project had more details to attend to than I realized. One would think that by now, I would have learned that no project is simple.

At one point I felt like that the way to cut through the complications would be for us to meet as a committee in Hawaii to complete the planning process. It was determined that I had a great idea, but that our class fund bank account wouldn’t quite support financing the “much needed meeting.”

The reunion was ultimately and ironically held at the Senior Citizen Center in Richfield. Also, if you want to take irony one step further, the Senior Center literally adjoins the cemetery.

I told people that our reunions were like a progressive party. The earlier ones were held at fun places like The Elks Club Lodge, Fish Lake Lodge, Winkel Distributing Company (Coors Beer), and restaurants. We were lively and fun in those days. Now we feel like we have “one foot in the grave and the other on a slick board.”

It is kind of fun though to sit around and compare prescription medications with each other. “Be careful with Celebrex, it’ll hurt your stomach.” “That Lipitor, it’ll make your muscles ache.” “Don’t double up on the Viagra, you’ll be sorry.”

We had a pretty decent turn-out for the reunion. But, there were quite a few who had other obligations and conflicts. A few are on missions. Some have health issues. A fair number, I observed, suffer from what I would call “acute apathy.”

One classmate, when asked if he was going to attend the reunion, reportedly replied, “Heck no. Why would I want to sit around and look at a bunch of old people?” He might have a point.

Then, of course, there is that pesky deterrent to reunion attendance — death. I think we’re approaching close to 25% of our class having moved on to the “happy hunting grounds.” Sad, but true.

We definitely all have our own way of viewing life. And we all have had our own experiences. To me, it’s fun to get together with people with whom I’ve shared life experiences. It kind of verifies the memories and rekindles the feelings of another time.

My wife is a believer in reunions. I attended her 50th high school reunion with her in May. She graduated from Enrico Fermi High in Enfield, Connecticut. If you know who Enrico Fermi was, you get extra points. Otherwise, look him up. He was an interesting guy. (Okay, okay, I’ll tell you. He is credited with building the first nuclear reactor, “the architect of the nuclear age.”)

I did not go with my wife to a 2nd high school reunion in June. She went to New Jersey for that one. She had a great time with classmates there who were in her elementary school. She has stayed in touch with some of these people — time and distance be darned. She was also able to visit an aunt who is in her nineties.

At my reunion, we had people write trivia questions which we read and answered after dinner. We had the rule that if you wrote a question, you needed to know the answer.

I put in the question, “What did the sign read which was on the wall clock in Mr. Rowley’s class?” The answer, “Time will pass, will you?”

Someone put in, “Where was the best place to park? Blank Blank Alley.” The answer was “Beer Can Alley” which was kind of a lonely farm road. (The parking referred to in the question had to do with late night “Lover’s Lane” type parking)

The question which didn’t have an answer was, “Why did we girls have to shower naked in front of the P.E. teacher? There was some lively debate over the issue. I finally ended it with the announcement that we’d make sure we had therapists at our next reunion.

It was a different world in the 1960’s. We had dress codes. Girls couldn’t wear pants to school. They would sometimes be asked to kneel on the floor of the hall to have their skirt or dress measured to see if it was too short. (I believe 4 inches from floor to bottom of the hemline was the standard)

Boys were expected to wear shirts with collars. Shirt tails had to be tucked in. And if a boy had hair that came down onto the collar or onto the ears, a haircut was required.

Consider going to your next class reunion. I believe that there is a high probability of having a good time if you do. I reminded my classmates of a Mark Twain quote when we advertised our reunion, “Twenty years from now you’ll be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do, than by the things you did.” Good advice! — Merrill