MountainMornings

It’s been 50 years since my Class of 1966 graduated and the gang’s all here. The cheerleaders and football players, the drama club and the band, the freaks and the geeks! Although back then it was more like Greased Lightening and now it’s more like Ben Gay. 

We compare joint replacements and admire grandchildren. We fall into a comfortable patois, “Where did the wind take you?” “Whatever happened to …?”

Some of us live in the Sunshine state, and some are in South Carolina. A few outliers moved to upstate New York, while many stayed put – commuting to NY or running a family business. Lots of us have retired and traveling fills a void; one of my very best friends is about to take a Viking cruise on the Danube, and I wish that Bob and I could pack up our bags and hitch a ride with her. 

We really had a great class. The first in the state to stage a walk-out to protest of all things the dress code. The administrators had no idea what to do with us. 1968 was in our future with its turbulence and tragedies, some of us went to Woodstock while some went to Vietnam. 

We competed in a NY radio station’s Principal of the Year contest, spending many months creating and signing thousands of  3 x 5 cards in every class with our teachers’ permission, and sometimes without. 

Bob tells me we actually submitted 798,000 cards! 

We almost won too, honest it was soooo close that Cousin Brucie flew out to congratulate us in a helicopter. 

My life since then would make Miss Adelaide proud. I didn’t get the picket fence or the rose garden, but I’m not complaining. I married my Nathan and ironically he has a cold at the moment.