I just attended my 40th high school reunion and it was a good thing that there were name tags. I, however, noticed some folks having difficulty reading the name tags without their reading glasses. I have clearly reached the age of maintenance. Some folks already had replacement body parts (mostly knees). If you were a stranger, looking at this group, you would have thought that there could have been a twenty year age spread. It was evident that some people were embracing life and going ahead with gusto and some had succumbed to a variety of fates.

What does this have to do with photography you ask? Well, the slide show of those high school years was the tie that bound us together through those years. We laughed at the shots of the girls archery team, posed with drawn bows and arrows. We remarked that no school would encourage that sport in today’s climate of fear in our schools. We had programs from proms and dances, theater bills, stacks of old hall passes and even a booklet of etiquette tips. Nostalgia was in high season and we were easily seduced into the warmth of its embrace.

The photos of us as small children in elementary school drew the most sighs. The innocence of tots in Halloween costumes and school plays was endearing. We were a cute bunch of kids. It was such a simpler time.

My class had its political awakening with the Cuban missile conflict. We practiced air raid drills, lining up in the hall, crouching against our lockers, covering the backs of our necks with our arms. I doubt that the exercise would have benefited us, if the need had ever arisen, but we routinely practiced.

Some of us went to Vietnam. One particularly popular young man didn’t come home. He was represented by a photo of his name on the Vietnam Memorial.

There was a display of the photos of our deceased classmates. It seemed far too many. Those faces looking back at us, will remain forever young in our thoughts. They didn’t get the chance to develop wrinkles or high blood pressure.

Throughout the evening it was the photographs that wove us together in a tapestry of early life experiences. We were shaped in the same place, by the same teachers, but life has carried us to very different places.

Of course, I took photos all night long and orchestrated the large group shot. After all, we still have lots of memories to make and more photos to take.

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