A New York Reunion...

Went to New York last weekend for the TMLA Class of ‘68’s Second Annual Luncheon, a long title of my invention for a small gathering of women. I’ve never made it to previous high school reunions before, distance, money or family obligations usually being the obstacles. Money was an obstacle this year, but with the help of my old friend, Jayne, who put me up and chauffeured me around – thus saving me the cost of both a hotel and a rental car – I finally made it!

Most of us looked pretty good for our sixtieth year - a few would have been recognizable anywhere – as for the rest of us, thank goodness for name tags with our H.S. pics on them!  It was fun seeing old faces and catching up with old friends' news.  We're widowed, divorced, remarried, long-time married and single....we have grown children, teens still at home, grandchildren and no children...we're retired, still working and involuntarily unemployed.  We laughed, hugged, talked, reminisced and made plans to do it again!

I hadn't seen Jayne in twenty-five or thirty years but it didn't take long at all to fall into comfortable conversation and catch up on years of happenings.  The friends you can pick up with after years, as though you'd last visited only days or weeks ago, are the best kind!  I'm resolving to keep our friendship current this time around...can't afford to wait another twenty-five or thirty years to see each other again!

Thanks in part to Facebook, I am also forging a new friendship.  Randy and I knew each other in high school, but not well.  Reconnecting on FB before the reunion, we found we had much in common, so we made a point to spend some time together.  Jayne, and I had a leisurely lunch with Randy on Sunday and had such fun.  I wish Randy and I had taken time to get to know each other better forty-two years ago...but it's never too late!

The reunion lunch took me back to Long Island for the first time in over twenty years and it was a real trip down memory lane.  I don't know what was more fun...seeing what's changed or seeing what hasn't.  My old elementary school has taken on the look of a reform school...run down, bars on the windows and neglected lawns.  The house where I grew up looked great, but the house we lived in when I was born had a decidedly unkempt feel to it.  The old drugstore on the corner where I met my first husband is now a nail salon and his favorite bowling alley is a mini-mall with a Staples.  Nancy's Fireside lounge, scene of many of our dates is still there, only it is just called Nancy's.  Our luncheon was held at Stella's, also scene of many dates, but I wouldn't have recognized it - it had been completely renovated from pizza place to lovely Italian Ristorante - but the food hadn't changed a bit...it was delicious!

It was truly a fun weekend.  I'm glad I went...and hope to go again!