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High School Class Reunion: Hard No
Maybe It’s a Small Town Thing, But I’m Never Going Back
My thirtieth high school class reunion was held a couple of years ago. I did not go. I didn’t even consider going. Okay, maybe I thought about it for a hot minute, but the insanity passed quickly.
I grew up in a small town in Northwestern Pennsylvania. When I say small, I am being totally legit. The population is roughly 2k, and my graduating class was under 100. Most of the kids I graduated with were the same kids I went to kindergarten with. There were a few additions, and a couple of kids moved away, but for the most part, we’d known each other throughout our entire childhoods, awkward tween years and all.
In some ways, this meant that we had a tight friend group. In more ways, it meant that we had known each other for so long — too long — that our good will had run thin. Sure, at graduation we were sentimental and nostalgic, reflecting on our shared experiences, and coming home for Christmas break meant getting together at the local bar for beers and walks down memory lane.
We had a five-year class reunion that was marred by juvenile shenanigans like (I kid you not) a cake fight and other drunken behavior despite the fact that we tried to pretend to be grownups and held it at the country club, the only place in town that could be called “fancy.”…
