Word is, high school reunions are not the "thing" they once were. Not as popular, not as relevant. A reunion probably does not have to be relevant to anything. Forget it as a means of recollecting things. We can recollect to our heart's content anytime. Word is, the younger alumni of today will re-connect if they want to, using the magic of communications tech. They call it social media.
My Morris High School Class of 1973 knew of nothing connected to the digital world. People might ask "How did you get by?" People my age will simply say "we just did."
I remember my father going to his Glenwood High School Class of 1934 reunions. My generation had the lap of luxury compared to what he and his classmates dealt with. 1934: John Dillinger times. So my father had sheer frugality ingrained in him. Never unlearned it. Memorized prices at the grocery store. People of his generation would in many cases pass on that sensitivity to their children. So that might include me.
People of my father's time learned to never throw anything away. They could take this to extremes. A sea change rolled along where the rapidly advancing tech called on us to regularly discard old generations of equipment and buy the newer, cutting-edge stuff. Then when we felt we were all settled in, change happened yet again!
A case study: right now as I write this, I'm contemplating if it's time to switch to battery-powered equipment like a mower and even a snow-blower. No more dealing with gas and oil or carburetors that need cleaning periodically. But is battery the answer? Should I wait longer for new advancements? Maybe.
We all have bitterness about certain aspects of when we grew up. You're a rare exception of you don't. As I have stated before, I hated how the system forced me to take steadily more "advanced" classes, a progression that left me with greatly diminished self-esteem. Crushed self-esteem, you might say. I have gone so far in the past as to say I wish I had been put in with the literal "retards" just so I could "survive" by any means possible until the age of 18 when I could be "freed" as if from prison.
I had fully mastered reading, writing and arithmetic before the end of sixth grade. So I implore you to wonder: Aren't there any number of so-called "common" jobs a person might take on, simply with the mastery of those basics? If so, why not leave kids alone a little more, stop pushing them in such an uncomfortable way? What's it to you, Mr. Teacher, if I cannot master "geometry" or "physics" or so many other things?
I took French and was bored to tears. Later on in life I learned that foreign language classes from that time in my life were really truly pointless. The kids who soldiered through the misery of those classes to get passing grades - even 'A' or 'B' - ended up with what? Nothing. They couldn't "speak French." They had been through myriad lessons on "conjugating verbs." Lots of painful mental gymnastics, which I guess is what high school is all about.
I never questioned the value of grades K-6 where we had "mother hen" teachers - I mean that as a compliment - who had a sense of what was important.
It turns out that the foreign language classes of my time were recognized for what they were, eventually. So on came the "immersion" approach which is the only effective one, if your goal is to actually learn to speak the language. My attitude was borne out as valid.
Geometry? Again I failed to see the point.
To this day I have my "multiplication tables" memorized. That's thanks to elementary school. I also learned cursive handwriting in the second grade. I mean, so as to be able to communicate in writing. Today the kids learn only how to print? As opposed to cursive? People of the U.S. Civil War era wrote not only cursive, they employed a style that could be downright flowery, even the army generals.
I don't understand printing as the only approach because it's too slow. Heaven help me and others trying to take notes in a college class by printing as opposed to cursive. But I don't think college classes are near as hard as they once were. The reason is simple: the young population is so much less than when my boomer generation was coming up. There was no issue for the big state colleges of my day attracting enough students. We could flood those places. Instructors could make their classes unpleasant and get away with it.
Today it appears colleges are practically groveling at the feet of young people to get them to come. Think the teachers would strive to impose unpleasantness under these circumstances?
Kids graduating high school today are far less likely to even think in terms of college, and the colleges know that. And of course the expense of college, the $ debt acquired, is a huge disincentive. So girls might hook up with wealthy older men as "sugar babies." That is what it has come to.
It comes from somewhere
High school education always reflects what the elders of a society seem to want for the children. The boomers' fathers had experienced World War II and for many, it was a life-defining experience for them. In a perverse way they might have seen it as a valuable thing. "Learn to follow instructions" by being in the military. Some of our elders seemed to worship this attitude. Of course if they got their higher education because of the G.I. Bill, then you couldn't blame them, really.
I say "perverse" because war is nothing but horrific. Did the boomers' fathers sit idly through Vietnam without uttering words of protest, because they saw the war as analogous to WWII? Fighting evil? That's how war is always sold.
Talk about a life-defining experience: that's what Vietnam was for my generation. We had to consider the "two sides." And if you were a war skeptic, you risked being labeled a communist or hippie or whatever. Today the U.S. has favorable relations with the same people we were fighting in Vietnam. Almost seamlessly we all came to accept the new attitude. The U.S. lost the war. It becomes little more than a footnote.
The number of direct U.S. fatalities from the war was about 58,000. If I'm off by about a thousand, it's no big deal, right? What's an extra thousand lost lives? We don't get to hear from the dead. Instead we hear from the survivors, many if not most of whom saw no direct combat. They'll speak for Memorial Day.
The older I get, the more I view holidays like Memorial Day and Veterans Day as being jingoistic. Out of respect to today's young Asian Americans, let's tone down all the talk about WWII. War is barbaric. It is nothing but a last resort.
So I'm going off on this tangent because I think the unpleasantness of school life for my generation had a lot to do with older Americans' views about international friction. Always be ready for "the next war." Get the young males to really accept discipline. Make high school courses miserable for the kids because the U.S. was under pressure to "beat the Russians" or "beat the communists" in the Cold War.
"Communism" is the big boogeyman that has always been looming. I think that is largely because of today's Republicans being so godawful scared of any redistribution of wealth. But it is getting ridiculous: 400 people possess 70 percent of the wealth in America. The vested interests work to protect the model that has made it so. But I don't think our public schools should be set up to accommodate it.
On a cheerful note
Did I enjoy attending the 50-year reunion for my Morris High School Class of 1973 on Saturday? Well yes I did. I missed the Friday portion and I regret that. Why do some people only attend on Friday? People have lots of excuses, I guess connected to our harried lives. Our lives will not be so harried for our 60th. Knock on wood.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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