50 Years

 I  graduated from high school 50 years ago this year.  It seems hard to believe, and yet it seems like a long, long time ago.  I think I night have gone to school in Peyton Place when I think back to my high school class. It was a small class, a little over 50 students, so approximately 25 boys and 25 girls.

There were a large number of scandals and sadness within those small numbers of people. I just got word that a girl I had liked in high school, but hadn't spoken to since then had passed away recently.  I heard long ago that the boy I was paired with to walk into the gym for graduation had died in California of a motorcycle accident soon after our graduation. The girl who got pregnant junior year and finished out high school had the oldest child of any of us and at one later reunion she had just had her second child many years later, same daddy, same husband. And he passed away soon after that child was born. But, those are the common tragedies, the kinds of things many high school classes might share.

But, there were some unusual tragedies as well from my small high school class.  The class president married one of the most popular girls in the class.  He was sent to jail on drug charges a while back. One of my best friends divorced her husband who was also in our class.  He killed himself on her birthday many years ago. Another good friend married a guy in the class and had a nice family, a nice farm.  Then he committed incest on his only daughter, their oldest child and went to jail for that. They aren't together anymore.  Some of the recent reunions have been held at his farm. He brought a young lady about his daughter's age to one of our reunions.

I have decided not to go to anymore reunions.  Most of the people I really like don't go.  Some of the people who go gossip about the ones who aren't there. I can't think of anything I would want to say to or know about any of those people.  It was a long, long time ago.  It feels like a different universe. I think I went to high school in the plot for a novel.