25th High School Reunion

In a blog posting over the summer I mentioned that I had re-connected with a good friend of mine from high school, Daryl Woltman. We both had a passion for radio and were on the WDGC staff together. We were pretty close during our freshman and sophomore years and we even had done a few shows together in those early days. Something changed after that point. Once I teamed up with Dave Jackson, all my creative energies went into writing and producing those shows and Daryl and I kind of went our separate ways. Plus Daryl was appointed to station manager, so he was essentially a second set of eyes and ears to Fred Moore, our station’s General Manager. I felt like I had to be on my best behavior around Daryl, so obviously our relationship changed a bit. After 25 years, it was great to see Daryl again over the summer. I wrote previously about how we discovered that we became dads for the first time within two hours of each other. Our daughters share the same birthday. Daryl also revealed that I was somewhat responsible for him and his wife Bev hooking up. Bev was the DJ who came on after the last season of the Smorgasbord show. Apparently Daryl asked Bev on a date and she supposedly asked me whether Daryl was a good (read: safe) guy. I gave him a positive endorsement and Bev ended up going out with him. I guess you never really know how much impact you have on other people’s lives.

So during a recent blog posting I had mentioned that I was unaware of anything being planned for our 25th high school reunion. However, with the magic of Facebook, a grassroots effort to have a reunion grew quickly and we indeed had our reunion this past weekend. It was a pretty informal affair, basically just meeting up at a local brewpub after the DGN homecoming game. I showed up and when I walked into the room, I thought I was in the wrong place. I thought I had mistakenly entered another school’s 40th year reunion or something, but no – it was my 25th year class reunion! Man did we ever get old. Some people obviously weathered better than others. I guess in comparison to many I saw there, I didn’t feel quite as broken down as I had written about in my last blog when I referred to needing a mouthguard for mouth clenching and something to treat my sensitive scalp.

The great thing about these get-togethers is that everyone is on equal footing. The days of cliques are over. Cheerleaders and jocks actually mingle with the burnouts and radio geeks. It was a respectable showing, but came nowhere near to bringing the roughly 600 or so graduates from my class together. It was a good time overall, and people seemed sorry to see it end. But I left as I did at my 10-year reunion 15 years ago – without exchanging any contact information with anyone. I guess that is the nature of reunions. Really, the only thing that brings such a diverse group of individuals together is something they shared many many years ago. I do hope to keep in contact with Daryl. I think we have more in common than just having attended the same school a lifetime ago.