Quinquagenary

The Alvin (Texas) High School Class of 1960 celebrated their 50th class reunion last night at Joe's.   Don’t let the name fool you, it is a very nice facility and the food and the service were outstanding.

The reunion was coordinated by Sharon (Kelso) Lusk, one of my favorite people at AHS (or anywhere else, for that matter) and she did a remarkable job. It was a very successful event – very pleasant atmosphere, and great to renew old friendships.  I was also pleased to see that I looked younger than all of the men and most of the women in the room – of course, that’s based on my mental image of myself; the mirror and I don’t always agree.

There were 124 of us who graduated that year, and last night’s event had 90 in attendance – subtract spouses (and a couple of our teachers who were still spry enough to attend) and that means just over a third of the class showed up! 

The organizers had managed to locate and contact just over half of us, but were unable to trace about a third of the class.  According to their records, only eight classmates – four guys and four gals – are known to be dead; remarkable, considering that the males in our class were subject to the draft and many went to Viet Nam.

They passed around the microphone for everyone to introduce their spouses and catch us up on what they were doing.  Most have retired, but there were  more than a few who are still working.  These speeches contained several laughs and quite a few surprises – one of the local cowboys, a class clown, ended up as the principal of a high school, and another fellow, who was bright enough but not one of our best students, recently went back to school and got his doctorate.

I was sad to learn that one of those no longer with us was Jan McGinness.  I didn’t learn when or how she died, but I have thought of her fondly and often over the years.  Without saying too much, I will reveal that she was a co-conspirator in a long and successful scheme to acquire and consume free beer when we were in school.  Late in our junior year, I wrote a limerick in her honor:

 

There once was a girl named McGinness

Who could never quite hack it at tennis

but at swimming she reigned

for at that she’d been trained

She had been a streetwalker in Venice

 

She thought it was hilarious.

This was my first reunion since graduation.  I figured I ought to go to at least one every fifty years.  Today’s title, by the way, is (according to Wikipedia) a synonym for semi-centennial.