In that idyllic interval between WWII and the Korean Conflict, we passed our high school days not yet realizing that we were the last generation of innocence and small-town values. We hung out at the soda fountain, had sock-hops in the high school gym, played Vic Damone records at the record shop (and seldom bought one.) Boys often actually walked their girlfriends home after school, carrying their books just like in the movies. We cared what the neighbors saw and what they thought of us. At school, we sat with our sweethearts during school assemblies, spent study halls leafing through issues of Look Magazine and went in orderly lines from classroom to classroom – no talking in the halls.
We had camera clubs, fashion shows, Mother-Daughter banquets, Senior Skip Day when we took a trip to Omaha, elections for Homecoming Queen, and built floats for homecoming parades. We dressed up as hillbillies for Sadie Hawkins Day, going to school wearing burlap bags or cut-off jeans with ropes for belts and, just before we came in sight of the school, we’d have a case of the jitters for fear we had dressed that way on the wrong day. Our class was the first in town history to allow girls to enroll in the male-dominated mechanical drawing and shop classes, to be followed soon by nutrition and cooking classes demanded by the boys.
We graduated during a busy week in the spring of 1952, not sure what lay ahead – college, an unanticipated trip to Korea, first jobs in Des Moines, Pella or hometown businesses. Several of us married our high school sweethearts and never left Knoxville for more exotic locations.
Time and the business of living found us, fifty years later, more than a bit surprised to be experiencing retirement and grandchildren. Enough of us had stayed behind to form a magnet that pulled the rest of us back, even after families had moved away or relatives had all died. It was a powerful magnet made up of people we grew up with in the same place at the same time. With little time and effort, we could still pick up where we left off. We found we still knew each other even if we didn’t know the details of all the intervening years. And we still liked each other – maybe better than when we were too immature to realize the part we played in each other’s lives.
That fifty-year reunion lacked the tensions of some of the earlier ones. We no longer held onto long-ago petty conflicts and jealousies. We didn’t argue politics or try to impress each other with our careers, our bank accounts, our honors and awards, our glamorous lives, our talented children or our important spouses. We came together to enjoy the opportunity to see each other again – and that’s just what we did. In spite of what were then recent world tragedies, I didn’t hear one word about 9/11, mailbox bombs or suicide bombers. It was a weekend that went back in time. A few precious days reliving good times we shared during those years between kindergarten and graduation where we had significant roles in forming each other’s attitudes, characters and futures.
The weekend began at the newly established senior center with Friday evening coffee and desserts for those who arrived early. Saturday morning saw us all boarding a school bus for a ride around some of the once-familiar sights of the county, including a surprise visit to the town of Monroe to visit with a classmate whose health prevented him from attending any of the reunion events. We toured the recently rejuvenated town of Pella just in time to catch the glories of the vast beds of blooms that marked their famed Tulip Time. We stopped at the overlook park at the Red Rock dam which had been completed (and vastly altered the landscape) since our high school days.
Saturday evening was meant to be the main event with cocktail hour and a catered dinner at the country club. The next morning, many of us enjoyed breakfast together at a popular cafe before heading for home. A little impromptu planning brought many of us back to the scenic dam overlook for a picnic of Saturday’s leftovers a few days later. Obviously, we hadn’t wanted the reunion to end.