The Library

[goobee]

I can't think that far back to high school. From what I can remember, as with most school, there were a few guys who were somewhat effeminate that everyone made fun of and some butch girls that people wondered about. After 40 years, everything becomes blurry, especially now that many of our classmates have died.
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[lonewolfz28]

The ones we've lost from our class were lost in their 20's, both in car accidents. One fell asleep driving home from college and the other was a passenger when her drunk assed boyfriend totaled the car, and walked away unscathed.
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Socially distancing since 1970.

[goobee]

We had a pretty good size class, over 800 students. At my 10 year reunion, I heard that an old girl friend died a few years after we graduated. Never found out the circumstances on what happened.

Between the 10th, 20th and 30th reunions, fewer and fewer people showed up. Our 40th would have been 2020 but covid cancelled that one. Even without covid, there wasn't a lot of interest in a mass get together.

There's a small Facebook page where people infrequently posts "Hi, how's everyone doing" messages and obituaries of those who have died.
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[lonewolfz28]

I've never been to a class reunion and likely never will. We had a graduating class of 72. Of that, there are only a handful that I was "friends" with. One, I still send email jokes to occasionally or say "hi" to when we happen to bump into each other around the area. But, the rest can go to hell for all I care.

Our school has an alumni banquet every June where all of the classes have their reunions at the same time, just at different tables/rooms. Even then, they've had a very hard time filling the local VFW. From what I've heard, it's usually the same few busy bodies that come out and exchange gossip. That holds zero interest for me.

One of our class officers tried getting me to go to our 30th. She was surprised to learn that I'd been back in the area for more than 6 years. I told her that I preferred to keep it that way and if she didn't know I was around, then it wasn't any different than when we were in the same classes together.
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Socially distancing since 1970.

[goobee]

Our class is a perfect example of racial strife. When I attended the various reunions through the years, I noticed that different people attended the 30th who didn't attend the 10th and 20th. Only later did I find out that there were two groups behind the scenes trying to lead the reunions, a predominantly black group and a not so predominantly black group. The two groups couldn't see eye to eye, so there were two alumni groups. People aligned with either groups didn't attend the reunions put on by the other. I believe the predominantly black group held the first two and the not so predominantly black group held the 30th.

People like me who didn't know about the backroom shit just went. But yeah, all this pettiness is ridiculous. We're all 60+ years old and some have never grown up.
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[lonewolfz28]

Our class had a different "class struggle" going on. The jocks and cheerleaders from those days still think they are the greatest and above everyone else. They're the ones who had parents and connections in high school to get on the teams, and then their parents made sure they got into good schools and were taken care of even after college.

The motor heads all work at the paper mill, the aerospace company or construction and bring in good to very good money.

The nerds went on to college and either landed very good paying jobs elsewhere, or completely flamed out when they realized they weren't always going to be the smartest people around.

Then, there's a half dozen of us who went into the military and can't be bothered with the petty BS because we've seen the world and realized just how small we are and how lucky we are to be living in the US to play the little small-minded games. We don't get together either, mainly because our military experiences were so different, that we really don't have much in common. I was aircraft maintenance. Jill was in the dental field in the AF, Joel was a surveyor in the Army for 8 years. John was Navy administration. Dave was AF Personnel. Sherry was an Army logistics officer. Dale washed out of AF logistics tech school after two months, so he really doesn't count. Out of all of us, I've got twice as much overseas time and variety than anyone else, and none of them understand what I'm talking about half the time any more than I can understand what they're talking about. And, most of the rest of the class either looks down on us as "knuckle draggers", or are just a little bit scared/intimidated by us.
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Socially distancing since 1970.

[goobee]

I took Marissa to the 20th and 30th. At the 20th, we bumped into one of my "almost" girl friends. She still looked decent. It felt weird introducing Marissa to her, "Marissa, this is my old friend Nancy."

This reminder on Facebook from August last year pretty much tells the story. I clicked on the link and the survey is still open. I guess they can't even get 50 people to sign up.


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[lonewolfz28]

Can't even get 50 out of over 800? Ouch. And that's just for a survey.

Although, I'd bet as a percentage, my class wouldn't be any better. The guys that I've heard about attending from my class were all local guys that were dragged there by their wives who also went to our school. The few friends I have from my school days all married women that went to different local schools, so, they get dragged to theirs instead of ours.
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Socially distancing since 1970.

[goobee]

I'm guessing that high school reunions may be over rated.
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[lonewolfz28]

It's almost like people just don't get warm fuzzies when thinking back to their high school days like they used to.
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Socially distancing since 1970.

[goobee]

Seeing how the current generation of whiners have been indoctrinated, I shudder to think what 10 years from now will look when they have their 10 year reunion. When I was growing up, if you didn't follow instructions, eat what you were fed and failed classes, a good smacking (within reason) would put you back on course. These days, they need emotional support animals.
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[lonewolfz28]

I imagine it's going to be quite confusing in CA. By the 10th reunion, half the girls will be guys and vice versa...and several of those will have started transitioning back to what they were born as. They're going to have to be very careful and very generic in their terms for each other until everyone establishes what they want to be seen as. They're gonna need bigger name tags, so everyone can list and read each other's "preferred pronouns".

We've actually been asked by UVM to increase the wooden name tag and pronoun font sizes because people were having a hard time reading from 6' away and there was too much chance of "dead naming" or mis-gendering someone.

Of course, that requires not only changing the programming, but also changing the way the material is cut and lowering our yield. So, the boss upped their price substantially. But, they'll pay it, because they don't want the stigma of using plastic, and they can always raise tuition and/or siphon more money from Vermont.
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Socially distancing since 1970.

[goobee]

You were right, there's a possible new movie coming:

[lonewolfz28]

That's alright. They can basically write her out as "away or busy on Ministry of Magic business" since Hermione is the new Minister of Magic during that time. That's what they did with Katherine Waterston when she decided to be a bitch.

The story is predominantly about Harry, his son, Draco's son and Voldemort's daughter, anyway. They can use archive footage for the parts where they go back in time. If they really need to, they can find another actress to fill any small parts where they absolutely need to have an older Hermione, since it takes place 20+ years after Harry Potter - The Deathly Hollows. Emilia Clarke, Felicity Jones, Imogen Poots, Kaya Scodelario, and Keira Knightley are all brunettes of the right age, height, and body build. Plus, they are all British, which seems to be a prerequisite.

With as little work as Emma Watson has had since the series ended, you have to wonder if she really wants to act, or live off being an activist being paid to make appearances?
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Socially distancing since 1970.

[goobee]

Her head really got big after Disney and getting the role of Belle.

The press and fans really fawned over her:

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/fashion/celebrity/news/a50131/emma-watson-beauty-and-the-beast-premiere-shanghai/
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