HIGH SCHOOL CLASS REUNIONS - ANTICIPATION AND TRIUMPH
Americans often experience extremes of emotion at high school class reunions. Since education to at least the age of 16 is compulsory in the U.S., high school is one of the few nearly universal life experiences, along with death, birth, parenting, and marriage. The teenage years are also one of the times of greatest change and passion in one’s life. High school class reunions may bring all those experiences flooding back.
Ten-year high school reunions can be the most exciting, because they come at the end of a person’s first decade as a grownup and career professional. It’s not uncommon for individuals to worry about their work achievements, their health and body shape, and any other measure of how far they have matured beyond their teen self.
Males may find themselves working out more, in order to look their best come reunion weekend. Similarly, women may put in extra time at the gym, and shop for new clothing. Both think of presentation, how best to describe their lives to others, and wonder how they’ll compare to their classmates in their fortunes after graduation.
The thrills and humiliations of high school class reunions have provided rich fodder for Hollywood movies. In the 1997 comedy hit “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion,” a pair of 28-year-old blondes who live in Los Angeles return to their tenth-year anniversary gathering in Tucson, Arizona, in business suits with a made-up story about their career achievements. John Hughes wrote and directed “Class Reunion,” a 1982 National Lampoon spoof of slasher movies, in which a psychotic killer bumps off attendees of the “Lizzie Borden High School” reunion of the class of 1972. He is getting revenge for a prank committed against him during their senior year.
The 1997 comedy thriller “Grosse Pointe Blank” makes fun of the anxiety people experience over their career achievements at a tenth-year high school reunion by centering on a hero who is a professional hit man.
Meeting an old flame at a reunion is another common idea raised in “Grosse Pointe Blank.” The person might turn out to be exactly as you remembered, or totally different.
An additional popular plot involves learning that the person you had a crush on those many years ago was just as interested in you, but just as unable to admit it. People who attend high school class reunions actually do re-connect with an old flame often enough in reality that the idea perpetuates itself.
Although Americans travel and relocate far more than they used to, the World Wide Web has assisted organizers of high school class reunions. Classmates.com, Switchboard.com, and Reunion.com are among many sites that assist people in tracking down fellow alumni from the past. There are also websites that make reunion organizing easy, such as CreativeReunions.com, AlumniClass.com, ReunionPlanner.com, and MyEvent.com’s reunion websites.
High school class reunions may also turn to a professional reunion planner for the heavy lifting. Check the recommended names listed by the National Association of Reunion Planners (NARM).
For more resources and information, I recommend Classmates.com.