Just did the Ned Dungey Family Reunion, and since visiting with family on the way there and back, and visiting with the family here in the Seattle area - and then last year's motorcycle trip, I think I have done my best to be one of the group, again. I don't group well.
Waiting in the mail was the invitation to my Ligonier Valley High School Class of 1966 Reunion, they do them about every five years. I was actually in the country, America, in 2006 and did join them for dinner and talk and a picture for the fortieth. Ever before that I seem to have sent well wishes, pictures of self and family and just kept protecting the country, or whatever that was I was engaged in.
I haven't contacted several of that class to find out how they are doing and what they did in all those years, last Reunion they had fourteen names of the fallen to remember, it wasn't the largest class - about a hundred and fifty students. Should I write another letter with some pictures, and hope in five more years they will invite me again. Fifty years of being on the shelf ought to have mellowed me, right? In five more years Obama could be King or we could have a new American government based on something other than a Living Constitution.
I do know that I left that town and valley on my way to Vietnam, riding my old 1948 Harley over the Ridge and down to Morgantown, West Virginia where my father had found work and would settle for years. In 2006 I walked all over Ligonier, visited the Fort Ligonier Museum and Fort (do the virtual tour or the video), did lots of walking and thinking. It is such a small town, but I went to school there for six years and such. We moved out in 1971, this is 2011 - forty years of other countries, languages, education and experiences. Most of the people attending know each other, have kept in contact, lived in the same area for years and listened to gossip and read about their lives in the local papers. I don't think I was mentioned that much. I was welcomed at the last Reunion, they are nice people but they don't really look at the world the way I do (which has to do with them being nice, maybe?). I will mull it over and think about it - five more years might be a better plan. I don't know. They are now on a facebook page so I could post this blog piece there, couldn't I?
1 comment:
I think it is like family reunions, must go if you want to reestablish relationships. As for me, and maybe you too, the question arises, do I have enough in common with high school class mates to re establish anything. My periodic reunions started with the 25th. did the 40th and 45th. Did have a couple of ole friends to talk with.
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