Please visit my new, improved website!

>> Wildermuth Creative Portraits <<

  • Four Score, or Several Years Ago

    April
    2
    2008

    The other night, Paige (my BFFL) and I were reminiscing about the good old days, how old we are, and the creepy part? Who has died from our two classes. She graduated a year ahead of me, so I don’t remember some of the folks in her class – in fact, I don’t remember a lot of the folks in my own class, either!

    I told her about a dream I had not too long ago that included this super sweet guy, Ken Carpenter. I remember Ken. He was a jock, he was good looking, above all else, he was cool. He was a sweetheart. Nice to everyone, smiling, laughing. He was just like that in my dream, too. I don’t know what he was doing there, but there he was – and I waved and greeted him like we were going to have coffee and catch up on years gone by.

    I Googled him the next morning, and was so sad when I found out that he’s passed away. Hodgkin’s disease took him when he was just 29. I about cried, honestly. Obviously he didn’t change, as the community revered him so much they named a park after him in the little town I grew up in. I intend to take the girls to that park when we get back up there in June.

    Paige and I talked about that, and a few others who are doing well – and more who had passed away. Seems cancer is the devil, and it’s snatching up more and more people than I realized.

    By the way – did you know that you can request your annual mammograms to start any time? You don’t have to wait until your 45. I’ve been having them done since I was around 27, when my sister-in-law passed away from what started out as breast cancer, and ended up ravaging her entire body. It’s never too soon to start checking.

    Well then I got to thinking about more people, people I lost touch with or just haven’t heard from in years. A couple of my best friends in high school drifted away, we kinda-sorta kept in touch but after I while I felt like I was more interested in maintaining a friendship than they were, so I took the hint and just stopped trying. Shalise, Jen, Erin, Tracy – they’ve all just disappeared.

    This morning I woke up thinking about Shalise. She went off to college, met a guy, fell in love, got married and had a baby. That’s about when we lost touch, so I thought I’d give her a Google. (hah! It’s better than getting hung up on, right? WHO? Who is this? Leanne? Leanne who?) I found something REALLY recent, like she’s doing this RIGHT NOW and dang if she still doesn’t have the biggest heart ever, she’s joined the 2008 MS Walk on May 4th. So of course I dropped a donation into her virtual bucket, and I think it would be really so cool if you did, too. Kinda sorta to say “hey” for me, more to support the cause, and applaud her for still being a sweetie-head. I think she has the most compassionate family I’ve ever met.

    Okay so while we were talking, I also had a movie flashback. It was Sandra Bullock in Hope Floats. She was the prom queen, yadda yadda and goes back to her home town and needs to get a job. She walks into an employment agency and a girl from high school runs the place, and finds it the perfect opportunity to tell her she doubt she can find an opening for a prom queen. Sandra admits that she has no idea how she treated this woman in high school, but she’s sure it couldn’t have been very nice since she’s hell-bent on putting her in her place. She asks if she could also put her in a job, too.

    MAN I could totally relate to that. I don’t remember people, I don’t know how I treated people, and though I definitely wasn’t a prom queen, I sure do wonder sometimes if I was a real foot-in-mouth kinda gal back then, too.

    I wonder, do you wonder? Do you find yourself surprised when you find out what someone’s doing now, what they look like? Do you attend your reunions? I haven’t, and don’t intend to… see above for my reasons. And just for fun, if you’re married and you want to show up in Google when someone’s lookin’ and they might not know your married name, add it to your blog somewhere. If you want to be found, that is.

    😉
    Here’s me:
    Leanne Belrichard, Harry D. Jacobs Class of 1989
    I totally botched the link to donate to MS Walk 2008 – Please go here if you’d like to donate!

    {8 Comments}

    1
    Renee said,

    I’ve never been to any of my reunions. And I probably will never go. The reunion committee keeps booking the event at a beach front hotel that is no where near our homecity. :rolleyes: I get that many of my class still live in our home city (Tampa, FL) but I know that most of them do not have the cash to go to this shindig. Oh and I need to add that this hotel isn’t a family kind of place, so I guess they’re expecting me to ditch my kid somewhere for them too. :rolleyes: No thank you. I’m not all that interested in being found anymore. I did that classmates for a bit once and the only people I found from my class on there were folks I knew who they were, but we didn’t hang out.

    Renee’s last blog post..Scattered!!!

    4.2.2008 @ 7:56 am
    2
    All Adither said,

    I had my twentieth reunion last summer and it triggered something in my brain where I cannot stop thinking about those darn people from high school. Especially a couple of them.

    4.2.2008 @ 8:01 am
    3
    June said,

    I went to my 20th and while there realized why I hadn’t gone to my 10th and why I wouldn’t be planning to go to any others. It was too weird. I think I’d rather remember the people as they were at the time they were part of my life. They are strangers now. Of course, my little circle of high school friends weren’t there. Perhaps I would have felt differently had they been.

    June’s last blog post..Wordless Wednesday Canyon View

    4.2.2008 @ 8:13 am
    4
    Janet said,

    Interesting! I’ve never been able to find any of my old friends on google…weird!

    Janet’s last blog post..What Is It Wednesday #105

    4.2.2008 @ 8:13 am
    5
    Mom said,

    I’ve been going to mine every 10 years. I enjoy my classmates as much now as I did on the first. I always felt kind of like an outsider, but on our first reunion, I found that there really aren’t any outsiders after you graduate. We had a lot of fun, and I enjoyed hearing how people “turned out”. I also enjoyed finding out that most of them actually LIKED me!! We aren’t going to have a 50th because it is too sad to see and hear who isn’t going to be there. When reminded of the good times, sometimes it seems as if there were more of them than you remember!

    4.2.2008 @ 9:15 am
    6
    Sue said,

    I had to chuckle at your blog today. Not because people were dying of course, but lately I have been looking up a lot of people on Ancestry.com to see what happened to them. I belong to that and can look at the Social Security Death Index and other info. I am glad I am not the only one doing these things, but I was really bummed when I found out that most of the people I was close with when I was in my 20’s have passed away. It was kinda strange and really bothered me. These people have all died around 8-10 years ago. I am 52 so it was disheartening to know they all died so young. Googling is an interesting thing, and it’s addicting LOL. I have found a lot of family information for genealogy as well, which is a good thing, lots of pictures of relatives and the like.

    I hope you are feeling better about the food/diet/weight thing… its such a burden on our souls isn’t it? We just have to do the best we can and not beat ourselves up too much.

    Sue

    4.2.2008 @ 10:46 am
    7

    I went to my 10 year. This year is 15 since graduation, but I haven’t heard about any reunion plans. Not sure I’d go again even if there were. I knew a lot of people in high school, but I wasn’t very close to any of them.

    InterstellarLass’s last blog post..Yowzers!

    4.4.2008 @ 11:09 pm
    8
    Kim said,

    I have been to all my reunions except one. And I was still away at college. Once you get to the 20th, it all seems to finally fall into place for everyone. And we’re all mostly just like our parents.

    Love the junkyard romance blog template. You have a real knack for bringing out the personality of wordpress. i am going to the link about how to leave blogger right now.

    The Moleskine is pretty intimidating at first. Just start doodling. Eventually, you will figure out where to go next with it. Or get several. I have so many with different purposes now, it’s not even funny.

    4.6.2008 @ 8:26 am

    Sorry, comments are now closed.


    {Latest Projects}