CLASS OF ’57 LUNCHEON, CONTINUED

The luncheon at Lou’s was a great winter time diversion for me. Ever since the reunion in June I have desired to reconnect with the people I graduated with and this was a good opportunity to do so. And it was nice to have just the “girls” in attendance for a change. Let’s face it --- men and women are just different animals when both sexes are present; I enjoy both, but it’s nice to have a change.

One person whom I talked with was Sally, who was voted wittiest of our class. She and I had a nice talk about our education careers since we both taught the same age group and the same subject. She was one of those people I didn’t even see at the reunion, so I was glad to catch up with her. She told me she is living in the same house she grew up in; I wonder what that would be like.

There were several others whom I never got around to really do more than say “Hi” when I walked in. But we committed to doing this again in April when we all trek out to Gallatin to see Alice Ann. She suggested we might like to eat at Fairview, an old 19th century home converted into a restaurant. I’m looking forward to it already.

Something very strange has happened to me in my feelings about this class. For some reason, I have never felt a part of this group of people. Oh, there were some who were friends, like Carolyn, but every time I went to the reunions I felt just a little discombobulated. I couldn’t seem to feel a connection. I had also attended the class of ’55 reunions (the genius’s) over the years and I had noticed that those people seemed to have gotten over the competitiveness and one-up-man-ship early on and really seemed to care for each other. I felt perfectly comfortable around them, but it was not so with my own classmates. That is, until the June reunion.

Beforehand, I told the genius that I didn’t even want to go. But once I went, everything changed. I can’t identify what happened; all I know is that here were these people, some of whom like Bill Daniel and Kay Simpkins and the Blumens and Henry Burkitt and on and on, that when I began talking to them, something clicked. I’ve thought about this over the months and what I’ve come up with is that of course the problem was with me, not the classmates. And now I want to make up for lost time. Of course, at 68 there’s not that much time left for some of us, but I realize what I have missed over the years. So I will continue to enjoy the times I can spend with these people who were such a part of my life for four years (or longer) and look forward to every occasion that I have to be with them.

How enlightening it has been for me to discover this about myself and how freeing. As “they” say, we’re never too old to learn.