http://www.bagsandmorebypam.blogspot.com/
Last night we attended Bob’s high school class reunion.
Turns out I knew more people from his class than I thought! But, the nicest surprise was to see my cousin, Joie, there. Had no clue her husband was in the same class as my husband. We were able to sit together, which made the evening even more special.
One of the first activities was to view the photos of all the class members who had passed away. “Whoops,” I said to Bob, about one of the photos. “I don’t think that is right, or we would have heard about that at church.” So today, I verified that the man was still alive and kicking, and sent that information to one of the class reunion committee members. His wife laughed when I told her what had happened, and said they had prematurely dead! They will all be glad to know that isn’t the case!
The classmate who was the EMCee introduced himself by saying he was from the government and he was there to help! Everyone roared at that. Turns out he has spent his career working for the Secret Service and Department of Defense in several cities during his government career.
At our table was also a man whose name I had heard my sister say when we were young. We caught up on what she had done during these years and what his career had been. When I shared that with my sister today, she said, “Yes, we went to a dance together in the 7th grade!” How cute is that?!
There were several jokes told, none of which I can remember well enough to share! but, I’ll try on this one. There was an Amish man who decided to take his buggy and go into town. As he was coming over the hill, a car was coming over from the opposite way, and there was a head-on collision, a terrible, terrible wreck. In court, some months later, the defense attorney was asking the Amish man how he was, “I’ve never felt better”, he replied. The attorney asked the same thing, and said “What did you tell the police officer that day?” The Amish man replied, “I told him what I just told you. I’ve never felt better.” The attorney went on and asked, “Well, tell us what happened.” The Amish man said, “Well, my horse was hurt bad. He had two broken legs. The police officer shot him to put him out of his misery. Then he went over and looked at my dog, whose back was broken. So, he shot him too so he wouldn’t suffer. Then he came over and asked me, ‘How are you feeling?’ I told him I had never felt better!”
There was good music provided by the Barry Ryser Quartet. Terrific performers. And the music from those times just can’t be beat!
Teachers from that era were invited guests. It was so enjoyable talking with each of them that I remembered. Miss Green, the oldest, no doubt, was our seventh grade social studies teacher. Every student had to stand next to his/her chair and recite Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, along with “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal….” along with other historical documents she felt it was important for us to know! Another was the basketball coach and health/PE teacher, who in 1960 had taken our basketball team to the Final Four. My sister was a cheerleader for that team. What great memories!
By the way our 2008-2009 Bloomington High School South basketball team won the state championship this year! Everyone attending the reunion got a copy of the school newspaper, “The Optimist” with the terrific news and team photo just before they headed to the Final Four and the championship game.
News from the day the class graduated in 1959: 5 lbs sugar 19 cents; Abel and Baker, the monkies , had just flown 300 feet into space and returned safely; John Foster Dulles was buried; and one of the movies playing that day was “Farewell to Arms.”
The class photo was taken! The photographer was outside the dining room happily selling them to the guests, when someone noticed he had printed the wrong class at the bottom: Bloomington High School Class of 1952! Needless to say, he had to leave and go reprint the landscape photos, and then return. The final photo turned out very well!
My sister’s Class of 1960 reunion is next year. As one of her classmates stood and said, “We will have a difficult time outdoing the Class of ‘59, but we will work on it!”
Congratulations to the planning committee for the Bloomington High School Class of 1959 reunion. They did a marvelous job, and Bob and I thoroughly enjoyed being there, seeing so many people, catching up, and recollecting fun and memorable incidents from those years.
