Reunions site of shared lives, nostalgia

When asked how I select Rusty Saber topics, I invariably answer that it's whatever is on my mind at the moment of truth: When the deadline de-mands that I put something on paper.

The moment of truth has arrived and pangs of nostalgia eject other thoughts. Nostalgia it is!

We recently attended my high school reunion. My wife attended; however, she is quick to point out that she didn't graduate with me; she is MUCH younger actually a whole year younger.

I won't bother to mention which anniversary it was; however, to count the years since my graduation on your fingers and toes, you would have to go through the digits several times.

I understand that some class reunions last only one day, culminating with a banquet. Not my class. It takes three days to get the job done; and now we meet every five years. Although many and varied activities, including a banquet, are planned, the main attraction is talk, hours of talk dredging up memories deeply sequestered inside memory banks that drift up into the here-and-now like morsels of gold.

Beginning with "Do you remember ... ?" incidents that may not have been particularly humorous at the time are recalled amid gales of laughter. Time has a way of creating humor where none existed.

If there is a downside to the festivities, it is that my former classmates have appointed me to be the banquet speaker for life. They are wonderful friends who happen to be a bright and clever lot, but asking me to speak reveals conspicuous flaws in their thinking. In preparing my remarks, I reflected on the process of growing up. I believe the people around us are a major factor in the outcome.

Most of us are products of the early influences in our lives: Parents and family. Certainly, our adolescent peers can be powerful influences, positive or negative. In my case, the effect was overwhelmingly positive. It is with schoolmates that we begin the profound human component called socialization.

I feel sorry for people who have nothing to do with re-unions or the like, denying themselves opportunities to go back and meet with remnants from the past; the past is where our memories reside; we can learn much about ourselves by revisiting them.

Also in preparation, I went through my high school yearbook (is it possible that I was ever that young?) Those bright and eager faces on the portrait pages were primed and ready to roar into the big, wide world. I don't know which of them accomplished the dreams concealed behind the eyes in those long-ago photographs. Dreams have a way of changing with passing years.

Because we have met every 10 years more recently, five we have kept in touch with each other as we have grown older. I believe that most are satisfied with the lives they have lived. They have mellowed out as the stresses of careers and families have lessened.

Where reunion chit-chat was once about new careers, marriage and children, now it revolves around grandchildren and retirement, now or in the future. Within the nostalgic musings wandering through my gray matter came the realization of the substantial changes America has undergone since our class graduated.

There was no television that we were aware of; no computers; no McDonald's or Holiday Inns; no space program; cars were primitive compared to today's high-tech chariots; Route 66 was the closest thing to a superhighway. Air-conditioned cars were ones with the windows rolled down. My former classmates have the look of men and women who met the challenges of change and have helped make the world a better place.

The pangs of nostalgia driving out those other topics are brought about by interacting with these adults that I first knew as adolescents. The past is gone; we can't go back. But by coming together with people who shared it with us, we can reach back and touch the past, cradle it in our hands, savor it and reluctantly let it go.

Someone has said "Home is where the HEART is." My heart is certainly in the here and now, in the Ozarks; it always will be. But there is another home, the one where roots are so firmly planted, there among family and friends, that always will be home no matter where we may roam. Yes, I went home and it was still there. ...

(Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury Un-iversity.)