Brick's Old Buds

Attendees at the 30th year reunion of
Muncie Southside class of 1981

     Last year about this time I started getting anxious about the fact that it didn't look as if we were going to have a class reunion for our 30th anniversary.  I hadn't attended any class reunions since our 5th year and I really wanted the chance to go back home and reconnect with some of these people that I hadn't laid eyes on for literally 3 decades.  I had heard through some friends that our 25th year reunion didn't go so well because very few people attended and the ones that did the planning got stuck with most of the expense and so were not excited about the prospect of getting burnt again.  I was not a class officer and really not much of a team player back in high school so I didn't really have any authority to do anything, but like I said I really wanted us to have a get together.  So I started a Facebook class page.  The Muncie Southside High School Class of 1981 page took off slowly when I invited all of the Facebook friends that I had to join if they had been in this class.  I then asked them to invite their friends and so on and before too long we had a pretty good core of alumni as part of this group.  So then I posited the question of a reunion.  Most people were in favor, but a good date and location would be needed and the cost had to also be considered.

Madison Street... Chevy Nova... Stop Light Roulette...

      Over the next few months we worked on all of the problems of dates, locale, costs, and finally came to some resolutions thanks to the generosity of time and property of a handful of old "Rebels".  The reunion was held at the home of one of our classmates, another couple of people took on the responsibility of looking up the last known locations of former students and inviting them, some more volunteered their time and stuff like tents, grills, tables, chairs and other necessary party accoutrement, and everyone agreed to bring food, drinks, and festive attitudes with them to keep the costs to a minimum (actually free if you didn't wish to donate to cover some of the costs of the grilled food and that wasn't required) and the fun to a maximum.  So I got to set some things in motion and then sit back and watch as really good people took on the responsibilities of providing me with a good time (man I love that I can spin this blog anyway I want).  Although I will say that I was willing to do whatever I could to help in the process and I did do a few things that helped in pulling this off.

     So seeing people that I hadn't seen for 30 years (or had only seen sporadically) was very interesting.  There were some that I was able to take up conversations with as if the past 30 years had never happened.  There were others there that I was a little bit embarrassed to talk with because I had been a jerk to them 30 years ago and I had never apologized and it looked as if they had never forgiven or forgotten.  Then there were some that even though we both were trying there just wasn't very much commonality to talk about.  And finally there were those there that I didn't really know that well back in the day, but they seemed extremely interesting and I had a really good time getting to know them for the first time after so many years. What I took away from our reunion most was a feeling that deep down it doesn't really matter at what stage in your life you meet someone.  There are just people that you're going to click with and some that you won't.  It really doesn't pay to try and force relationships that were never meant to be.  That doesn't mean that you can/should blow people off out of hand.  It means that it is okay to have a friendly conversation with someone every 30 years or so.  I also realized that I had lost touch with some really cool people and I'm doing what I can to not let that happen again.  And finally the best realization that I came to at our 30th reunion was that no matter how many pounds we've gained or how much hair we've lost, the important thing about who we are is "who we are".  I like people who are likable and I like people who like me.  It didn't take too long to find those people even if they knew me back when I wasn't as likable as I am today or if I hadn't really seen them 30 years ago, the connections were made at the reunion.