17-year-olds, 35 years later

If you’re my Facebook friend (and you really should be), you’ve already seen these, but if I don’t post something like this here, I might as well stop blogging altogether.

So here it is: my 35th high school reunion!  Is it just me or does everyone wonder how on earth X number of years could possibly have passed?

(And do all people look as good as we do, collectively, after 35 years?  I think NOT!)

That’s “Bobby Star” on the left.  Have I told you the story about the time, back when you could actually meet passengers at the gate, that about 20 of us were bored one night when he was coming back from a week on the East Coast and we decided head to the airport and greet him as if he was a huge celebrity?  I haven’t told you that story?  John P. was the reporter with the reporter’s hat and tape recorder – yes, tape recorder.  A bunch of us girls played screaming groupies… and we played it well!  We had “Welcome home, Bobby Star!” signs and banners and generally caused mayhem in the San Francisco Airport.  Reporter John even found his way to the middle island of the baggage claim carousel, yelling “your fans want to know!” questions to Bobby Star.  Poor Bob, poor SHY Bob, was mortified!!  But I’ll bet he felt very loved that night!

So that’s John P. 35 years later, along with his adoring fans, Lisa and Debbie.  He’s only slightly more serious now.

Debbie (on the left) and I were dear friends all through high school and Sandy (on the right), who had long blond hair back then that I swear she spent hours on every morning, was a pom-pon girl when I was a cheerleader.  Such rah-rahs!

More ex-rah-rahs!

That’s MaryLou, my fellow reunion planner.  She and I pulled off the event from Seattle, thanks to Facebook!

   MaryLou (with Nancy) hasn’t changed a bit.  Thank goodness!

Simplicity was the name of the evening, so I just copied senior pictures from the yearbook and laid them out, along with “Hello, my name is…” nametags, a Sharpie, and double-stick tape.  Make your own nametag!

Thanks to MaryLou’s daughter’s connections, the big surprise of the night was the appearance of the Stanford Jazz Band and the Stanford Dollies!  Thanks, Kate, for helping to pull off that surprise!

So now we get to the part where I meet old boyfriends again after years and years…  That’s Mark B, who I think looks petty damn good for an old 53-year-old guy.  Ehhhh?!

And Mark T, my first real boyfriend.  Mark was the inspiration of a piece of advice I later gave my kids when they began to date: “Just kiss, only kiss, and do a lot of it, for a whole year… and it will serve you well for years to come!”

 

Keith, who I dated for my whole sophomore year, hasn’t been to a reunion in 20 years – which is inexcusable for the student body president!  So a bunch of us hounded him to come to this one – and he did!  Finally! It was wonderful to see him again!

Yes, I did in fact request a photo with both my serious high school boyfriends.  I just wanted to see if I still had any iota of that flirting mojo.  I dug down deep, but I found a teeny tiny remnant…  :-) I’ve already sent out the Facebook event invitation for reunion #36 next August.  It’ll be another “be there or be square” event, so for those of you who attended Menlo-Atherton High School anywhere within a year or two of 1975, you know what you need to do…