East meets West

It's been a long time since I've made a trip "back home"; probably twenty years or more. I've lived in Colorado for the better part of fifty years, long enough to qualify as a real westerner even though I don't have a horse. (I do have a large dog.)

My parents moved out here after they retired, realizing wisely that a day would come when they would need my help. It was fun watching them adjust to life in the shadows of the Rockies. My mother took issue with the guys who dared wear their hats into public restaurants, and she often let them know it; one advantage, I suppose, to being a little old lady is that you can say what you think. My dad stopped into the post office in the small town where they settled and was absolutely stunned when the postmaster called him Fred instead of Mr. Wilson. The nerve! They adjusted, slowly and slightly, but New Jersey always lingered in their blood; you don't change much when you're over sixty.

Jersey's all but gone in me. Being immersed in the culture and ways of the west, with most of my friends and relatives nearby, has made me forget my roots. Helping to organize a high school reunion has been an eye-opener. I guess I noticed that I was out of touch with east coast culture when I called one of the girls -- yes, I know, the girls are all sixty-something now but they'll always be girls to me -- and mentioned that I had served as mayor of our city. Her reaction; "Get oudda hea!" I hadn't heard those words said in that way outside of a theater in many moons (that's western for "a long time"). It made me a little homesick, no fooling!

I started to think about the cultural divide between civilization and fly-over county and realized that the way I act, and the way I talk, is foreign to the girls and guys I grew up with. There are a handful of us from HHS who have ended up out here west of the Mississippi, but the map with classmate's locations shows that most have stayed within a day's drive of the shore and, therefore, well within the zone of civilization. We pioneers have learned a way of life that is different. We're all on a first name basis, even across generations and with people we just met. We call our Governor "Hick", for Pete's sake, right to his face! We wear hats into restaurants and drive jeeps without doors and leave the ski racks on all year.  We own guns and shoot them. We left our refinement and our good silverware somewhere along the Oregon Trail and we only take baths on Saturday night.

That all adds up to this: I may be less polished and more brash than my old friends back east, and some may consider that rude and unbecoming, but sometimes it takes that kind of person to set the wheels in motion and get something done. So if I've stepped on some toes without noticing, chalk it up to the length of my boots.

Reuniting the class of 1962

The effort to find a hundred and a half scattered souls continues, seasoned with high points and low. Some twenty-one classmates are gone forever, another sixteen are lost somewhere or hiding, but we've got addresses for the other one-hundred and eighteen and forty-six have already signed onto the Hawthorne62.com website. With ten months to go before we enter 2012, chances  are good that we'll fill the roster and be able to pass news along to practically everyone. The experience we've had with ClassCreators, the people who designed and  support the class website, has been mostly trouble-free and I recommend them to anyone who may be considering a reunion effort. A complete and accurate mailing list is essential to organizing an inclusive reunion, and the ability to communicate and share experiences is certainly worth the modest charge - about $100/year.  If you're thinking "reunion", go to http://www.classcreator.com and see what they have to offer.