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Catch-up Part 1 - 50th High School Reunion
Jun. 1st, 2026 02:08 pmI got back from my series of trips on Tuesday evening and I’ve been wrestling with jet lag demons since then. I still have plenty of catching up to do, but I’ve at least: a) gotten my laundry done, b) bought some groceries and c) written a to-do list.
The first of the series of trips was just up to New York in mid-April for my 50th (!) High School Reunion. I have almost certainly mentioned before that my home town (Island Park, New York - a small island off the south shore of Long Island) was (and still is) absurdly small (maybe 5000 people on a good day) and, hence, did not have our own high school. We were bussed 8 miles away to West Hempstead. Yes, there were several towns in between, but this was the height of the later days of the baby boom and everywhere was overcrowded with their own students and didn’t want the likes of us. From my standpoint, West Hempstead was a good place to go to high school, since it was a more affluent and more professional community, with better educational resources (e.g. the ability to offer AP courses). And, at least for some of us, it was good just having a larger group to mingle and make friends in. There are many good things about small towns, but there is also one particularly horrible thing. Namely, nobody will ever let you forget something dumb or weird that you did.
I opted to stay in New York City for the reunion and took the train up on Friday afternoon. Given my hotel dissatisfaction on two previous, relatively recent trips, I tried another hotel. The Renaissance is on 35th Street, between 7th and 8th, which is a short walk from Penn Station / Moynihan Train Hall. It was reasonably comfortable and not too ridiculously priced. Breakfast isn’t included but it is right by a couple of decent bagel places and, more importantly, a reasonably cheap coffee shop (Andrew’s) that is fairly good.
There was a happy hour on Friday night, which had about a dozen attendees. There were some people there I remembered well and a few I remembered with prompting. It is probably odd that I remembered only one of a pair of (fraternal) twins. And it is decidedly odd that I failed to remember one of the Island Park people - and probably offended him by not remembering him. And, frankly, even with reminders, his name sounds vaguely familiar, but I have no specific memories associated with him. But, overall, we had a nice conversation, though the bar was noisier than optimal for that.
The only real New York thing I did on Saturday during the day was walk around some of my mid-town touchpoints, e.g. giving my regards to Patience and Fortitude (the library lions). In the late afternoon, I changed into dressy clothes and walked over to Penn Station to get the train to Island Park. I’d intended to walk to the venue (less than a mile away), but the twins were at the station picking up someone else, so they gave me a ride, too. We actually went first to another nearby bar, which was loud and crowded, so we ended up sitting outside, overlooking Reynolds Channel. It was unfortunately cold and windy, so we were happy to go over to Lambrou’s, where the reunion was being held. There was a reasonably good turnout. I think it was somewhere around 150 attendees, but I’m not sure.
I didn’t take pictures and I tend to be somewhat cautious about writing publicly about other people, so most of what I have to say is going to sound a bit vague. There were people who I wish had been there, e.g. one of our more colorful classmates, who lives in France but who had said he was going to come. There were people I was surprised to see, e.g. someone who lived down the street from me, but I never really spent much time with after our very young days playing with Barbie dolls together. (No particular reason, but the people on one end of the block just didn’t socialize much with the people on the other end of the block.)
The most interesting thing I found is what people did or didn’t remember. For example, one guy immediately remembered my story about our junior high math teacher not catching on that he was listening to Mets games on a transistor radio until he commented to another teacher about what a shame it was that Mike had to use a hearing aid at his age. And a girl who lived on the next block remembered our making paper mache trees for the set of our class production of Camelot, but didn’t realize that afternoon was also my introduction to Dark Shadows, which remains the only soap opera I ever watched regularly. On the other hand, another guy didn’t remember a bus ride from Roosevelt Field Mall during which an older guy threatened him, me, and another girl for being too loud. And someone else said he didn't know what I was talking about when I commented on our constant arguments in social studies class.
The biggest surprise was that a girl who lived two houses away from me (and was a few years younger than us) had married a boy from our class whose cousins lived in the house on the other side of mine.
The best thing was reconnecting with a few people I hadn’t seen in ages. I shared a Lyft back to the city with Grace, who was part of a group of us who hung out in the school library during free periods, playing word games. (Her mother was the school librarian.) And Norman and I were friends going back to 2nd grade or so, when we shared a box of crayons. The first thing he told me when we were catching up is that he’s gay, which I’ve known for at least 20 years (since he brought a date to a previous reunion). I was glad to hear that he’s happily married now. (I should probably mention that back in high school, my best friend, Debby, had a huge crush on him. There was only one boy who I’d had a crush on who was there and I’d gotten over that crush long before we graduated from high school.)
I skipped the Sunday brunch since I was leaving on my next trip just a couple of days later. As I have said numerous times before, my life is a schedule conflict.
At any rate, the class of ’76 has mostly aged reasonably well. There was, alas, a table to remember those who are gone. That used to be people who died in things like car accidents, but we’ve reached the stage in life where cancer or heart disease are the primary killers. I used to say that our memories stay alive forever, but, given what I (and other people) do and do not remember, I may be wrong about that.
The first of the series of trips was just up to New York in mid-April for my 50th (!) High School Reunion. I have almost certainly mentioned before that my home town (Island Park, New York - a small island off the south shore of Long Island) was (and still is) absurdly small (maybe 5000 people on a good day) and, hence, did not have our own high school. We were bussed 8 miles away to West Hempstead. Yes, there were several towns in between, but this was the height of the later days of the baby boom and everywhere was overcrowded with their own students and didn’t want the likes of us. From my standpoint, West Hempstead was a good place to go to high school, since it was a more affluent and more professional community, with better educational resources (e.g. the ability to offer AP courses). And, at least for some of us, it was good just having a larger group to mingle and make friends in. There are many good things about small towns, but there is also one particularly horrible thing. Namely, nobody will ever let you forget something dumb or weird that you did.
I opted to stay in New York City for the reunion and took the train up on Friday afternoon. Given my hotel dissatisfaction on two previous, relatively recent trips, I tried another hotel. The Renaissance is on 35th Street, between 7th and 8th, which is a short walk from Penn Station / Moynihan Train Hall. It was reasonably comfortable and not too ridiculously priced. Breakfast isn’t included but it is right by a couple of decent bagel places and, more importantly, a reasonably cheap coffee shop (Andrew’s) that is fairly good.
There was a happy hour on Friday night, which had about a dozen attendees. There were some people there I remembered well and a few I remembered with prompting. It is probably odd that I remembered only one of a pair of (fraternal) twins. And it is decidedly odd that I failed to remember one of the Island Park people - and probably offended him by not remembering him. And, frankly, even with reminders, his name sounds vaguely familiar, but I have no specific memories associated with him. But, overall, we had a nice conversation, though the bar was noisier than optimal for that.
The only real New York thing I did on Saturday during the day was walk around some of my mid-town touchpoints, e.g. giving my regards to Patience and Fortitude (the library lions). In the late afternoon, I changed into dressy clothes and walked over to Penn Station to get the train to Island Park. I’d intended to walk to the venue (less than a mile away), but the twins were at the station picking up someone else, so they gave me a ride, too. We actually went first to another nearby bar, which was loud and crowded, so we ended up sitting outside, overlooking Reynolds Channel. It was unfortunately cold and windy, so we were happy to go over to Lambrou’s, where the reunion was being held. There was a reasonably good turnout. I think it was somewhere around 150 attendees, but I’m not sure.
I didn’t take pictures and I tend to be somewhat cautious about writing publicly about other people, so most of what I have to say is going to sound a bit vague. There were people who I wish had been there, e.g. one of our more colorful classmates, who lives in France but who had said he was going to come. There were people I was surprised to see, e.g. someone who lived down the street from me, but I never really spent much time with after our very young days playing with Barbie dolls together. (No particular reason, but the people on one end of the block just didn’t socialize much with the people on the other end of the block.)
The most interesting thing I found is what people did or didn’t remember. For example, one guy immediately remembered my story about our junior high math teacher not catching on that he was listening to Mets games on a transistor radio until he commented to another teacher about what a shame it was that Mike had to use a hearing aid at his age. And a girl who lived on the next block remembered our making paper mache trees for the set of our class production of Camelot, but didn’t realize that afternoon was also my introduction to Dark Shadows, which remains the only soap opera I ever watched regularly. On the other hand, another guy didn’t remember a bus ride from Roosevelt Field Mall during which an older guy threatened him, me, and another girl for being too loud. And someone else said he didn't know what I was talking about when I commented on our constant arguments in social studies class.
The biggest surprise was that a girl who lived two houses away from me (and was a few years younger than us) had married a boy from our class whose cousins lived in the house on the other side of mine.
The best thing was reconnecting with a few people I hadn’t seen in ages. I shared a Lyft back to the city with Grace, who was part of a group of us who hung out in the school library during free periods, playing word games. (Her mother was the school librarian.) And Norman and I were friends going back to 2nd grade or so, when we shared a box of crayons. The first thing he told me when we were catching up is that he’s gay, which I’ve known for at least 20 years (since he brought a date to a previous reunion). I was glad to hear that he’s happily married now. (I should probably mention that back in high school, my best friend, Debby, had a huge crush on him. There was only one boy who I’d had a crush on who was there and I’d gotten over that crush long before we graduated from high school.)
I skipped the Sunday brunch since I was leaving on my next trip just a couple of days later. As I have said numerous times before, my life is a schedule conflict.
At any rate, the class of ’76 has mostly aged reasonably well. There was, alas, a table to remember those who are gone. That used to be people who died in things like car accidents, but we’ve reached the stage in life where cancer or heart disease are the primary killers. I used to say that our memories stay alive forever, but, given what I (and other people) do and do not remember, I may be wrong about that.
