Reunion Crashing

As I have written before, reunions are my thing.  I love 'em.  I can't get enough of seeing old friends, so much so that this past weekend I traveled to Virginia Beach to attend the reunion of a high school graduating class that I was never a part of.  I'll explain.

I was going to be a member of the 1981 graduating class of First Colonial High School, having attended elementary and junior high school with those who did graduate.  However, my mother in her infinite wisdom decided that a change of venue would be of great benefit to me, so in the ninth grade I packed up and took my act to boarding school in the Washington, D.C. suburbs.

With the benefit of hindsight I have come to understand and appreciate the boarding school experience, but the forced separation at age 14 from my childhood friends and all that was familiar was tough. I still saw my pals during the summer and over school breaks, but the interaction was not the same as it had been.  I wasn't part of the gang anymore, instead becoming the guy who used to be but no longer was "one of us."  I suppose it didn't bother me too much at the time because I was at the age where I was making new friends and was too busy figuring out who I was to be introspective.

The gang.  Tommy Pedicone, Page Ewell, David Ford, me, D.R. Ford.

After eighth grade I never lived fulltime in Virginia Beach again.  Boarding school, college, and life afterwards took me to Colorado, Washington, D.C., and eventually here to Lexington, Kentucky, but never back to Virginia Beach. As time passed, I found myself increasingly curious about the people with whom I had shared my early years.  After all, it wasn't that I had chosen to lose touch, but without school as the common bond, the old social system fell apart for me. I didn't lose track of everyone, just most of them. 

I suppose some in my position would have just gone on with their lives, never looking back, but that's not who I am.  I thought about my old friends and wondered about their lives. For years I toyed with the idea of crashing a First Colonial reunion, thinking that would be where I would see the most people and get myself back in the game. I went so far as to call my buddy Page Ewell to secure a wingman commitment from him.  I don't think he ever thought I was serious. 

Enter Facebook.  I know Facebook isn't for everybody but it has worked for me.  Thanks to my unique name I have to be among the most easily findable persons among Facebook's 500 million registered users.    

"Seward Totty, Seward Totty...oh yeah, I remember that guy!" Boom!  I am Facebook dynamite.

Seward and Page. Then.

Page and Seward. Now.

It was Facebook that got me back in the game, if only in a virtual sort of way.  As great as this social networking is for finding people and as much as I have enjoyed knowing that I once again had a connection to these people's lives, it wasn't enough.  The reunion.  I still needed that reunion. 

When I got word this spring of the upcoming 30th, I floated with the organizers the idea of making an appearance and was delighted to get an positive response.  The setup seemed perfect. Rather than a structured event staged by the school and held in the gym, this instead was organized by a few members of the class and was to be held at a local bar/restaurant. That little bit of encouragement was all I needed.

So, last Friday I hopped a plane and flew to Virginia Beach to visit my mother and also to take care of this reunion business. As he had promised, Page signed on as my wingman and, thanks to Facebook, I didn't have to go in stone cold.  I knew how people looked and knew some of their stories.  Still, I was nervous. I rarely make it back to Virginia Beach anymore and it had been 35 years since I had seen some of the people I thought I was going to see.  I was about to answer some questions that were almost half a lifetime in the making.  Would it be all that I hoped?

Damn right it was.  It was great, it was cathartic, it was the best wayback ride I have been on in a long time. Of course, you don't just pick right back up with people after a few decades' absence, but it was a great start. We laughed, we told stories on each other, and I had more than a few people remark that they didn't remember me being so tall.  I was happy to learn that my reputation as the class clown had survived the years intact.

I saw my pal David Ford for the first time in at least two decades.  As kids, we were inseparable until one day we weren't anymore.  At some point we had reached a fork in the road and he had gone one way and I the other and that was it.  Thankfully, those two roads merged again last weekend  in Virginia Beach, just a few miles from where we grew up together.

David Ford, me, Terry "Shotwell" McPherson, Page Ewell.

Not everyone I hoped to see was there.  Not everyone who was there was someone I knew, but I made a lot of progress on the mental checklist I have been compiling since about 1978. I am happy to report that if the quality of one's life can be measured by the friendships we make along the way, well then I have been and continue to be mighty lucky.