I just got

back from my high school reunion and boy are my arms tired.

That was not

a tired stab at a tired punchline about flying, but rather a serious remark.

One does a lot of hand shaking and hugging at high school reunions, with

a lot of patting on the back and the occasional punch on the shoulder

thrown in. I'm typing this column with one hand.

It was a successful

event, though. Everybody was in good spirits and several people that did

not graduate with the class, but did time in elementary school and middle

school with a majority of us, showed up. It made the whole thing seem

very special. It was good to see over 100 people from a class of 300 turn

out so well.

As far as I

could tell, there weren't any pizza delivery boys, though they might have

had to work, and I didn't seek out anybody to make myself feel superior.

In fact, I was very impressed with how many people turned out. There were

software programmers and IT professionals, of course, teachers and EMTs,

and speech therapists and hygeinists.

The most popular

career for the people I graduated with seems to be some mixture of financial

consulting investment planning - or something like that. So many people

said they were in one of those fields that it all blended together by

the end of the evening, which wasn't until the wee hours of the morning.

Though the

reunion itself ended at midnight, the party continued at a friend's apartment

for a long time afterward. I talked with people I was very close with,

as well as people I almost never spoke to. I was surprised, and relieved,

to see that the things that had separated us in high school had faded

away. We have crossed the threshold of adulthood and the old cliques are

just that, old. They don't make one group feel superior to another anymore.

In fact, there

were many other things that brought us together now. I met up with several

old teammates of mine from our championship soccer team. We were 11 years

old when we dominated our league and now, 14 years later, we rarely touch

a ball. The picture of us is sure to warm the heart of our old coach,

who just happens to be my dad. I also talked with the person I tied in

the second grade Read-A Thon with and the results were still being challenged.

Some people

changed and some didn't.

It was great

to see people who loosened up or treated people nicer now, as it was also

refreshing to see that some people's spirit was as buoyant and alive as

ever. However, it was sad to see the people that couldn't enjoy themselves

because they felt they were out of their element now, just as it was sad

to see people inebriated out of their gourds and know it was just another

party on just another weekend for them.

I think the

class is going to keep our reunion schedule weird from now on. This was

our seven-year reunion and we want to get together for a 13-year reunion

instead of a 10-year reunion. We are a class unto ourselves.

We are filled

with so much potential and we are the ones most likely to capitalize on

it.

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