Reunited

Several years ago, when I graduated from high school, I was class president.  My position meant that I was the de facto organizer and lead for all alumni activities involving a graduating class of 306 students.  At the time, I had many more important things to worry about -- namely, moving to Ann Arbor, Michigan and beginning life as an undergrad.  The fact that I would at some point have to organize a reunion seemed very, very distant.

Fast-forward ten years.  I had skipped out on any responsibility for the 5-year reunion, because in my opinion 5-year reunions are lame.  when 98% of your graduating class goes on to a 2 or 4-year college, I think 5 years is way too soon to have a class reunion.  Not enough has changed for most people to make it interesting.  Somebody else decided to throw it for my class, and I ended up getting dragged there by some friends over Thanksgiving break 5 years ago.  I told anyone who asked that even though it was a good tiem, I am not for the 5-year reunion concept, but I would be all over a 10-year reunion. 

Well, it's been more than a third of my life, and ten years has come and gone.  I came back from South Africa in March, and I had to put something together.  But I didn't know where to begin, so I started talking to people.  Then I realized: this was something that I was going to have to initiate myself.  No one was going to do it for me. 

So I sent out a first e-mail to everyone on the 5-year list putting them on notice": yes I was alive, yes I was going to plan the reunion, and yes, it would happen over Thanksgiving weekend.  Julie contacted me and let me know she was interested in helping me to plan, seeing as how she'd been in the area for the past few years and knew a lot of good spots.  Naturally, I took her up on the offer -- I haven't spent more than 7 months in D.C. in the past 10 years.

Thus, a reunion was born.  Julie and I collected e-mail addresses and discussed venues throughout the summer.  And, last Saturday night, the reunion came and went.  And the most amazing thing about it is that it was a smashing success. 

Seriously.  It was at Local 16 downtown in D.C., and we had a LOT of people there -- about half of whom were classmates.  For a class of our size, that's an amazing turnout.  The room we reserved fit 200 people, and at one point it was packed.

It was amazing to see so many classmates, some of whom I thought I'd never see again.  People like Iggy, who came all the way from Hawaii.  Medhi.  Rumor has it that Steve P. was there...and I don't even remember whether or not he graduated in our class or from another high school.  Heather, Brandon, Eugene, Laura, all those Davids, Willie, Susan, Julie L...it was very surprising, in a good way.

I rang the bell -- and our class answered in a big way.  People were thanking me all night for putting the reunion together.  I was too busy thanking them all for coming to realize the enority of the event I'd started until the next day.  It was an amazing time. 

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