My husband, Frank, was 75 in 2008, and he decided that in addition to his usual Big Birthday Bash, he wanted to have a Young Family Reunion here at our house. The Young family hadn't had a reunion since 1940! Believe it or not, New Mexico is almost central for his family, who live in Washington State, California, Florida, and Connecticut. I was elated to plan for this gathering because I had never been to a family reunion, and I knew that getting his cousins and siblings together would be a blast! And it was.
My cousin and I decided sometime in the fall of 2008 that we needed to start having Kolb family reunions, and that’s just what we did. Our first was in September 2009, and we’ve had one every other year since then. Here’s where we’ve gathered: Hilltop Lakes, TX; Monroe, LA; Heber Springs, AR; Cerrillos, NM (our house); and Sicamous, B.C., Canada. In 2019, we’ll go back to Heber Springs. These get-togethers of all sorts of cousins (even of a friend of a distant cousin whom we now consider a cousin and a childhood friend of ours who lived next door to our grandparents) are just so much fun!
But family reunions aren’t the topic for this post. I want to tell you about my 60th High School Reunion, which was held on April 20 and 21 this year. We old folks graduated on June 4, 1958, from Pensacola (FL) High School. There were 620 graduates, and about 100 of us and spouses were at the Pensacola Yacht Club for our celebration. And let me tell you that old folks still know how to celebrate!
Sometimes the elderly are forgetful, though, and I am one of them. My best friend asked if Frank and I could get together with a group called the Taste Buddies, friends who gathered every other month for a potluck when we lived in Pensacola fifteen years ago. They still gather. Fran wanted to get everyone together at her house on Saturday, April 21, and I gladly accepted, forgetting that the big dinner meeting for our class would be that night. Can you believe that? I couldn’t disappoint Fran and the other friends, so I missed the dinner and entertainment on Saturday evening.
But Friday night was fantastic! I was on the registration committee, so I was able to greet everyone when they arrived. So much fun! I must admit that since our class was so huge, I really didn’t know lots of people. I was shy in high school and was friends mostly with my church buddies, but I’m not shy now, so I left the gathering probably knowing more people in 2018 than I did from 1955 – 1958! Something you need to know about me, as far as shyness is concerned, is this. As soon as I graduated, I declared to myself that two things were definitely going to happen at Mississippi College: I was going to be known (I’d never be shy again!), and I was going to be called Sandy, not Sandra. My mother liked the name Sandra, but I never did. I still don’t, and I use that name only for official reasons.
It was so much fun getting together with the people that I did remember from high school days, and it was fine for me not to be there on Saturday. After all, my Taste Buddy friends were so special, and I needed to get together with them!
I always say that if there aren’t pictures of an event, then the event didn’t happen. So . . . to prove that the 60th Class Reunion happened, here are some photos.
2 comments:
We have a class reunion coming up this fall. I think we are planning to just have a catered dinner on a Saturday evening. We'll see how it turns out. It has been a few years since we've had a formal reunion with cousins. Maybe it's about time to try to have another one, but it's harder now that everyone's own immediate families are grown and growing. Scheduling is always difficult!
Hi, Marcy! Thanks for the comment! You might be surprised at the number of cousins who would come to a reunion. There are seven of us first cousins left, but the largest number of cousins are second and third and the once removed, etc. I really do think that the young people will continue to have the reunions even after us old folks are gone. The "matriarch" of our family is about three weeks older than I am, but even though she has some health problems, she'll probably outlive all of us. I wish we had a reunion every year instead of every other year. I may suggest that we first cousins try to get together somewhere in Texas on "off" years. All of the cousins except me live in Texas and Louisiana. I hope you find time to read my P post. It's about our daughter!
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