I enjoyed attending my 10-year high school class reunion, and that didn't seem so long ago. But it was. Now even further removed from those awkward and painful high school days, I just attended my 20-year class reunion last weekend.
There were hints of this 10 years ago, but even more obvious today is that:
- academic and athletic success does not translate into success in life
- beauty is fleeting
- people are resourceful--even idiots find a way to earn a living
- if opportunities exist, people don't move far from home
- the relationship between money and happiness is not linear
- extreme social retardation does not wane over time
Our reunion committee did a great job finding and contacting the nearly 700 alumni in a rather short period of time, but unfortunately turnout was rather low. There were only a half-dozen people I really wanted to see, and only a few of them attended. Fortunately there were others I didn't know in high school who I got to meet and live pretty interesting lives.
Like many reunions, there was a 20-question survey to be filled out prior to attending. As someone who didn't participate in extracurricular sports, I was annoyed that 3 of the 20 questions asked about high school, college, and pro sports involvement. Somewhat in protest I left a snarky response detailing how I trained and then walked on and made the roster as a linebacker with the Atlanta Falcons from 1997 to 1999. At 5'7" and weighing 150 pounds soaking wet in high school, anyone who knew me would have immediately identified this as a ruse. But walking around the room Saturday night reading the "Did you know..." posters about my classmates, I was amused to see that my "success" with the Falcons had made the cut.
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