.Carolyn Burton: Musings on My 40th - and First - High School Reunion

I have been talked into it. I am going to my first high school reunion---all the way from the mountains of North Carolina.

Where is this Ben E. Keith Co.? Must be the name of a restaurant. I go onto the Internet. A photo pans across the screen from a birdseye view. There are hugh warehouses.....a beer distribution facility covering acres of land not far from Love Field(I remember Love Field). I call Donna." Why is the Saturday night party at a Budweiser plant?" She laughs. Don't worry. it will be wonderful. It was.

I arrive at the Ben E. Keith Co. in an excited and somewhat apprehensive state. Who would be there? Besides the three or four friends that I had kept contact with, would I recognize anyone? Would anyone know me? After all, it had been 40 years.

I sign. I get my container, program packet and name tag. Thank God for name tags. I look around--unfamiliar looking people. And surprise, they aren't young anymore. Do I know them? I approach a woman. I don't recognize her but I am going to find out who she is. I check the name tag...then a flash of recognition and a burst of memory. "Judy!"(We both went to Armstrong.) "I remember going to your house....taking violin lessons from your mother!" Now I see exactly who she is...she is, the same but different and she looks great..She remembers me too. Our memories jogged, recall school, times together. Some things she remembers, I don't.

That's the way it was. Unfamiliar persons suddenly becoming known and familiar. Here is my first love from grade school. And because it was my first, it made an indelible impression. My recollections are vivid and poignant. He remembers too. We recall the details of a birthday party at my house; that, in fact, we have the same birthday. At school we had great fun together...comrades, troublemakers. But we can't recall how this first love died....his version is unfamiliar to me. In junior high and high school, we hardly knew each other. But now we are remembering and I am delighted that I was important to him too.

What is strikingly different about this high school gathering is that the old social classifications and mores have completely dissolved. Everyone is incredibly warm and embracing to each other. It doesn't matter if back then you were a football player or a band nerd: a brilliant student or a complete screw-up. It doesn't matter is you don't remember this person at all. After all, we were in the same Highland Park cruise ship forty years ago and have survived--now we are older, nicer people.

Here is someone whom, when I read the name tag, I realize I didn't know back then. No matter. We talk. He is lively, funny. Like me, and most of us here, he has children and they are grown and gone.(I am pleased that my youngest is only 19 and does still come home regularly). Unlike me, he is still in his first marriage. He has had two interesting careers; has traveled to some fabulous places. Neither of us are ready to retire. I wonder--why didn't I know him? Why didn't I acknowledge his worth back then?

Someone approaches me. I do not recognize her. She looks remarkably the same and fabulous. We had been friends in the first and second grade before I moved from Bradfield to Armstrong. She is full of recollections. "I remember we sat on your roof and ate cinnamon toast!" "What?" I say. This cannot be. We had an enormous house in old Highland Park with a sloping red tile roof. I surely never sat on it. "Well, I don't remember that," I say. She assures me that we did. "We sat on your roof. We ate cinnamon toast." I struggle with this information." I did have a little playhouse in the back yard. It was about five feet high. I used to climb on the top of it and sit there under the limbs of a huge pecan tree." "That's it," she says. "But it seemed so high...I had remembered that we were on top of your house."

I am having such a good time. Why have I waited 40 years to reconnect with all these people? To tell the truth, I wouldn't have been caught dead at the tenth or the twentieth reunion, for that matter. When I left Highland Park for college in New York, I abandoned my conservative background as fast as I cast off my matching pastel skirts and sweaters. As I moved through college and antiwar protests during the sixties and a career as a legal services attorney serving poor clients, I was totally alienated from the likes of Highland Park. My background---affluent, lily white, Goldwater Republican,---embarrassed me. I wanted to disassociate, not associate.

That was four decades ago. Now on the steps of the Ben E. Keith Co., some thirty of us are standing together in the dark, posing for our Armstrong grade school photo. We definitely feel bonded.

Time is the great leveler. All of us have gone around in a big circle to somewhere and back. Or maybe some never left. Nonetheless, we all have a story to tell: husbands and wives; children and grandchildren; career climbs and falls. We are more alike now than in previous decades. We are older. We are mellower, more generous in spirit. The truth is we are all glad to be alive..

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Veteran's Board

The members of the Class of 1961 who served in the military.

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Guess Who Came to Dinner in September

Arlin Ann Alexander          Jane Beck Robinson          Ned Benson

Thomas Blagg                  Tom Briggs                      David Bywaters

Susan Candy Luterman       Susan Cohen Babendure   Mike Crain

Betty Carlson Crain            Anne Dale Wiesner           Alan Dreeben

Byron Egan                     Donna Florer Small     Marianne Hughes Taylor  

                      Sherry Johnson Blagg          Jim Lavender

John McClellan Marshall          Nancy McMahan Sweers         Dan Olson

George Otstott                         William Sanderson                 Lee Shuey

Maxine Weitzman Spohn     A. Starke Taylor III(Tracy)       Andy Small

Dorothy Durning McKnight          Jack Gregory          Norman Putnam(Jim)

Skipper Shaw        Ann Vanderwoude Lemmons         Judy Maus Moore

Steve Levy                    John Matlack                        Pat Allen

Susan Hughes Robertson     Allan Garonzik         Carol Hildebrand(David)

Don Haroz                       William Guion                  Patty Stephens

Buddy Putty                   Penny Taylor Gomez             Jill Peavy David

Leslie Nissen Maynard            Sam Bonney                        Betsy Bain Hickman

Susan Shank Mix                 Dean McKay                Linda Sutton Carl

Ronald Beard                    Sandra Fernald Gerow        Becky Madole Cornell 

Palmer Howard                   Garrett Boone          Connie Fields Moore

John Ferris                  Frances Phillips Pratt                 Sheila McKee Barrett

Sally Epstein Lubin             Carolyn Burton          Cameron Smith Vann

Ronnie Siler                   Lennox McClendon Reed               Howard Hallam  

Clyde Jackson                    Rachel Schoch                      John G. Niles

Geneva Bray Johnson            Susie Germany               Susie Beene Franklin

Nancy Wiener Marcus            Jack Davis              Vicki West Harrison

Emily Bethancourt DeSalvo     Clare Golden Grable        John M. Orr

Thomas Shelton            Kathy(Tippie) Bivings -Norris   Diana Gunstream Heald

Robert Conner              Nancy Miller Fontenot        Nina Koepf Hopkins

Dean Alvord                      Kathy Kella Snover             Carolyn Harris Vestal

Bob McRae                Mary Ellen McGauley Martin        Pat Burns Meserole

Tom Meserole                  Nancy Reed                        Sonny Friedman

Barbara Hilseweck Wong     Nancy Alexander(Lila Walker)      Sara Hooks Moll

Cynthia Baskette McKenzie       Mary Beth Walker Matthews    Rue Howell Henry

Kay McElheny Solon             Susan Woodward Kennemer        Jerry A. Candy

Frank Wood         Ben Kerr         Corky Barton              Charlotte Hervey Moore

Ken Newberry        Elizabeth Wood Manning   Bob Powell       Liz Hassell Turner

Don Neblett        Mickey Hudnall     Janeen Griffin Kendall     Bill Kendall

Denny Newberry Cope     Linda Sherrill         Barry Levy          Tom Cotten 

Dan Vanderwoude                Michael Donsky                 Julie Flake Hamilton

Carolyn Newman Edwards       McKee Yant      Charles Misura      Buddy Harris

Tom McCorkle      Anne Garrett Hancock    Judy Jesky Watson  Gayles Hayes Lawley

Alex Morgan        Danny Thomas        Bridges Ballowe       Bill Robertson

Sally Schley Hill          Polly Richardson Simpkins      Nona Kean     Bill Deniger

Robin Spencer       Betsy Murphy Dyke     David Lovinggood     Joe Bonney

Sue Ashe Wetsel    Jeanne Crum Fortson     Bonnie MacKenzie Agnich     Boby Mayes

Lindley Myers     Robin Spencer     Susan Harris Clayton

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Classmates Registration Comments

• BETSY BAIN HICKMAN:  "I really admire our age group. We are the bridge from the Big Band days to Rock & Roll. We have witnessed and lived through such deverse experiences AND succeeded throughout it all."
• DAVID HILDEBRAND:  "So sorry because of illness I can not be there. Best wishes to all always!  My wife is coming Friday to say hello from me to all."
• PATTY STEPHENS: "Thank you for work to make this reunion possible.  What a precious invite."
• JOHN MATLACK:  "Thanks, Susan"
• TOM BRIGGS:  "Looking forward to this.  If I can help in any way with the preparation let me know!"
• SANDRA SHANK CRISLER:  "Would love to be there buy my husband's health will not permit it.  Best wishes for everyone."
• NANCY MCMAHAN SCHWEERS:  "Thanks for all your good work."
• SHERRY JOHNSON BLAGG & TOM BLAGG:  "Great job on the invitations.  Sounds like a great line up of events.  Let me know if I can help."
• FRANCES CRUMP CHILDERS:  "Sounds like a great weekend. Maybe next time.  We are raising our grandson(15). And I am full time caregiver for my Mother(95). Life is fast!"
• BECKY MADOLE CORNELL: Thanks so much for all of your effort on our behalf- Looking forward to it all-
• SALLY EPSTEIN LUBIN:  "Looking forward to seeing everyone"
• LENNOX MCCLENDON REED:  "Looking forward to it!!!!!!"
• SUSIE GERMANY:  "I am so excited!!! Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.!"
• NANCY WIENER MARCUS:  "Looking forward to seeing everyone!  I plan to attend Fri Night & Sat Night-   Thanks for all the work everyone has done to make this Big Event Happen!"
• LEE ANN SLATON SCHAFFER:  "Sorry I can't make it  -  have a great time!
• NANCY MILLER FONTENOT:  "I can't bellieve its been 50 years!  Congratulations to all of  us who are still here to celebrate."
• NINA KOEPF HOPKINS:  "Thank you for all that you are doing to create this very special reunion."
• KATHY KELLA SNOVER:  "Happily Married to Arnie Snover. We enjoy traveling together and this past year we cruised through the Tahitian Islands, took a river cruise through the Netherlands to see beautiful tulips, and to Belgium; to Puerta Vallarta, Mx and Destin, FL.  In 2009 I retired from the Tucson Unified School District after 30 years.  I have two sons: Kevin Depew & Matt Depew; and one daughter, Lisa Redding.  Arnie also has 2 sons and a daughter & we have 8 grandchildren between us.  My newest is Rebecca Grace Redding named after my late Mother, Grace Kella.  I am lookin forward to renewing old acquaintances at my first reunion, ever  -  # 50 !!!!!!!!!!!!"
• LIZ HASSELL TURNER:  "Susan, thank you and the reunion committe for all your hard work!  I am looking forward to seeing everyone and know it will be a blast. Thanks, Liz.
• GAYLE HAYES LAWLEY:  "I am looking forward to seeing everyone!"

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