Should old acquaintance be forgot...

Yes, that's me in the upper-right corner, in 1965.

Growing older has its advantages, like senior coffee at McDonald’s and senior discounts at various stores. (For some reason, our “Senior Center Thrift Store” doesn’t have senior discounts. Hmm.) This year I reached another “senior event” about which I had mixed feelings: my fiftieth high school reunion. In 1965 I was among 460 teenagers graduating from Puyallup High School on the west side of Washington state.

 I gave my high school years my best effort, graduating in the top twelve academically. The class “brain,” no surprise, got a doctorate from Yale. (Two B’s in physical education kept me from a 4.0.  I married a physical education teacher. Go figure.) A decade after high school, the many friends who penned in my annual that they’d remember me forever had shrunk to two who sent Christmas greetings for a few years. In those decades before social media, if you didn’t write, call, or get together, friendships tended to fizzle, especially if you moved away from the core community of graduates.   

When the invitation came, I debated over spending $100 a couple for the event at a local casino (presuming drinks and dancing were part of the plan). The strongest drinks in our house are Pepsi or morning-blend coffee. I’ve only done “happy dancing” when I got a book contract in the mail.  My “gambling” is taking a risk on pull-date yogurt from the local discount grocery.  Plus, the reunion was scheduled for our wedding anniversary, and a three-hour drive away. I decided to stay home.

The organizers were doing a “reunion annual” and invited class members to submit a “bio” telling what they had done since high school. Not surprisingly, the student body president became a doctor and the football star spent his life in construction. Many wrote of buying big boats and RVs for retirement. Some had seen the world in military service. One taught in Japan for 26 years. Another spent more than forty years in public relations and lobbying across the nation in Washington, D.C.

 A classmate I didn’t remember earned a doctorate in gerontology and conducted 2,000 workshops in places like Thailand, China, Northern Marianas, Guam and Canada. Oh yes, she also volunteered in Mongolia, trekked with gorillas in Rwanda, and horse-camped in Turkey. Another classmate, to her doctor’s amazement, survived brain cancer.  But the last page held names of 67 members who’d passed away—15% of the class. Some guys may have lost their lives in the Vietnam War. Even 50 years later, without going to our original annual, I could recall their faces

Our daily treks through the wood-floored halls of an old school had united us. But our life choices had separated us.  So had our spiritual choices. I considered going to the reunion for the opportunity to tell what Christ had done for me. But the celebration venue didn’t really lend itself to that. Instead, in my “reunion annual bio” I mentioned that a certain Bible verse had been my life guide.

I know of people who used alumni connections to the glory of God. One from my husband’s high school class went away to West Point and a distinguished military career. But upon retiring to his hometown, he contacted fellow alumni and invited them to participate in a monthly E-mailed prayer request list.

The “golden class reunion” did take me one place, to Psalm 90, attributed to Moses. Two verses especially seemed appropriate for perspective on milestones:

Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom (v. 12)
May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands. (v. 17)

No social event can compete with what’s ahead for those who have trusted Christ. The heavenly “graduation” will surpass it all!