Recall Thomas Wolfe's 1940 novel, YOU CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN, about a fledgling writer, George Webber, whose successful book makes more than an occasional reference to his town whose residents resent how they are characterized and whose depiction of them is distorted, so much so that Webber is sent menacing correspondence and even death threats from the town's citizens. Wolfe's exploration of America's changing society of the 1920s/30s prevented Webber from ever being able to return, "home again".
Not so for the 50th high school reunion of the Class of 1966 from Evanston Township High School (ETHS) in Evanston, Illinois held the weekend of September 9-10, 2016. This writer happens to be one of those graduates.
This reunion for a class of a little over 900 graduates drew nearly a third, or about 300 attendees, to the main affair on Saturday night the 10th. It was quite a high-water mark, though preceded that day by a tour of the high school followed by a luncheon. The night before was an informal get-together at a locally, well-known restaurant that well outdrew the anticipated attendance.
One classmate would go on to describe the main event party as a "love-fest" 50 years in the making, but involving many having not interacted with one another for that long period of time, absent some sort of social media connection in recent years. After all, we all are 50 years older, with some aging in different ways; some gracefully, others not and to an extent that that we could no longer be recognized from our youthful days as high school students absent others taking a stare or two at our name tags affixed to our chest-high clothing. Then there were others whose basic physical characteristics absent some hair loss, a bit more weight, a limp in our gait, and certainly imbued with more wrinkles than ever before, changed little from those days long since gone. Some also achieved material or financial success as well as recognition by others with words on paper, hardware or from some other form of praise and worthiness during that time; others were equally rewarded from the ensuing years after high school by hooking up with a loving and caring spouse (or two or three?), best friend or partner; blessed children; grandchildren; assisting those less fortunate; or undertaking charitable or community service. And there were others, to be sure, that fell on hard times or had a troubled life. Existence can be a crapshoot, as we know only too well. Of course, there were those who were no longer with us, totaling close to 110+. Knowing of those losses brought a tear to more than one attendee.
But what wasn't missing and that shown brightly throughout the evening affair was the camaraderie, the spirit, the enthusiasm, and, well (once more), the "love", for each other who attended the evening party. This was infectious, even the spouses and guests of classmates caught this "fever". The festiveness and exquisite feeling for the occasion reflected all the long hours put in for over a year by a hard-working reunion planning committee headed by Karen Miller Hudachko. The big ticket items like the site of the party-the Monaco Ballroom at the Doubletree Hotel in Skokie, the yummy food, and the DJ spinning the '60s tunes to the small items like the green screen and camera used for complimentary photographs, and a continuous running on a TV screen of those who have passed were the bailiwick of Sue Ann Keller Mandel and her husband, Larry. Their deftness in ensuring the execution of all this was as if they were maestros with their batons leading a symphony orchestra. The creativeness and artistry of the decorations went to Marc Bermann, Joyce Weber and their respective reunion committee members. There was even a table with photocopies of certain pages of old copies of the Evanstonian, the school newspaper, highlighting events from the class, from sports to academics to the arts. Recall Streisand's song, Memories....
The surprise of the evening was when Larry (Mandel), also serving as our unofficial emcee that introduced the evening's agenda, asked us to first bow our heads, maybe, we thought, in silence to remember the nation's losses on 9-11, to occur the following day, or as a remembrance of those from our class we have lost. Wrong. The school's fight song was then played and without any advance notice, the current high school cheerleaders in their regalia trotted to the dance floor to lead us all in the song and their cheers---we were all back at one of our high school's football games, even for the few minutes the song blared over the DJ's loud speaker. We all sang proudly and applauded these young women whose parents might not even have been born back in 1966. Yikes. But what an astoundingly, absolute delight to hear and see it all!
The real significance, though, of our evening's gathering was having those that attended come back home to a time before the challenges of life were to meet and hit us all head-on. I first wrote about this in a piece titled, "Noted Evanston High Class to Hold 50th Reunion" ((Nov. 8, 2015) (http://www.huffingtonpost.com-miles-j-zaremski/noted-evanston-high-class_b_8504638.html). The only difference between 1966 and now was, of course, those pesky 50 years of subsequent experiences---and a lot happened during those years, like the Viet Nam War; like the mop-tops coming from across the pond; like racial strife raising its ugly, but necessary, head; like having to matriculate the rigors of a college education, or having to go directly to work for one reason or another; and like having to deal with death of a loved one.
As if a metaphor for what others of my class must have experienced in their neighborhoods of Evanston over the weekend of the reunion, I grew up in south Evanston, a new, middle-class part of town in the late 1950s. Six of us (Mike Feinstein, Barry Bochner, Frank Ling, Tom Leeds, Sheldon Lebovitz and yours truly) assembled for our reunion before the party by revisiting earlier in the afternoon each of our homes that we grew up in five decades earlier. Yes, those structures remained the same as we recalled growing up in them, only weathered by time. They were our sanctuaries from which we carried forth and expanded the experiences of our youth and inside of which we tackled our homework assignments (well, maybe not all the time). Those abodes seemed small by today's standards, but they were nonetheless our homes for which none of us ever complained. We remembered them with fondness in our minds to be as big as the Taj Mahal too, but, obviously, never came close to fitting into even a small part of it. We also visited sites we frequented in the city, even going to the playground of Dawes School, where we went for grades K-6. We tried a bit of touch football on the grassy area where we did it years ago as kids, but our lungs were not what they used to be back then, so our "3 on 3" game lasted all of about 15 minutes. We also tried the game of what we called, "fast-pitch", where the pitcher threw a rubber ball the size of a hardball to the batter, standing 50' away in front of a brick ball that became an automatic ball return-backstop. Suffice it to say, none of us could throw more than 35 MPH (normal now-a-days is 90+)---hoping not to hit the batter with our pitches---and most only swung at the thrown balls without connecting. Who cared about performance; it was all fun, and merely another measure of being "invited" back home by reliving a best part of it again.
The evening of nearly six hours went by oh so quickly, filled up by food, entertainment and dancing (ok, our step was not as lively as long ago but our hearts carried the rhythm of the songs as always). More significantly, we engaged in conversation from meeting and greeting long-lost friends and high school schoolyard chums. The (re)-connections from days gone by could not have been stronger or more inviting, even though when we left school, no one had a career, avocation or profession. Now returning so many years later, many we found out are retired from what they chose to do with their lives. We never knew what occurred in-between.
At its end, one of our classmates developed a medical condition requiring the attention of health care personnel, now goodness resolved without complication. Yet, what took place initially reminds us, as if in microcosm, that life can be short but certainly no less precious for any one of us, to be guarded jealously as best as we are able to muster. After all, there won't be a second 50th reunion for any of us, lest we set a world record for longevity, and we may never again see others we conversed and hung out with at the reunion party.
In a blink of an eye, the evening soiree was over. Gone but for the existence of memories revived, photos taken of others or with us, relationships renewed, and new, additional memories stored away. So, to any other 50th reunion class that takes place every year across the land, be rightfully jealous---no class will ever have what members of our class had over this past weekend.
In contrast to Thomas Wolfe's Webber, recall the fictional author again who couldn't return home, those in attendance at the 50th reunion for ETHS' Class of 1966 did comfortably and proudly return home again, and a fine and welcoming "home" it was!