Rain (of Rainy Day Thoughts) posted a nice article (Going back in time) about her high school class's 50th reunion that was held recently. In it she wrote as follows:
Overall, I felt the attendees were nice people with whom to spend an evening which was not a surprise as basically they were pretty nice people back in 1961 at least in my experience. I think high school can be a difficult time, but mine pretty well yielded typical experiences of dances, sporting events, clubs, and classes. (Three of our teachers attended the dinner). I have good memories from my high school years. The things that weren't so terrific were part of experiences where we don't just learn from the easy things but also the hard. Even though I was taking classes aimed at entering college, I think I was a bit shallow back then; but let's face it, teen years are bound to be a bit that way and maybe that's not bad as a part of growth.
My comment to her posting included the following:
You made me think about my own attitude toward the people with whom I shared studies so many years ago (I was graduated 5 years earlier than you.) Even the boys who made my life somewhat unpleasant in grade school and high school, have been given a "pass" by me. I now understand that they were "just" being young/adolescent/teen-aged boys. I hope that everyone has, by now, given me a "pass" for having been a young/adolescent/teen-aged girl!
Although I was graduated with the class of 1955, I had attended school for the previous 10 years with the class of 1956. Thus, several months ago, I was delighted to (for the first time) learn of a reunion being held by the class of 1956. I asked if I might attend (sending a check for two reservations with the request) and the class committee were kind enough to say yes. However, because of my Aunt V's death, I did not make it to the class of 1956's 55th reunion.
Non-attendance was my loss. I have reason to doubt that anyone who attended would have remembered me, anyway.
I am completely forgettable
Story 1: Other than seeing my closest friends from high school a couple of times during my freshman year at college, I have only run into one person from the class of 1956 in later years. (I had even attended a holiday ball while home from college during the end-of-year break in 1955; but, my date was from the class of 1957, so he would not have been at the reunion!) The one person into whom I had run was an eye-opener. We shall call him Mr B.
Mr B, as a kid (we shall call him Kid B), had been a really, really, really ornery kid all through grades 3 - 10. I have a remembrance (perhaps not a real memory, I'm hoping) of our 5th grade teacher becoming totally exasperated with him and clunking him on the head with a small rock paperweight that she kept on her desk. I also have vivid memory of walking home from school (about 20 blocks) one warm day with a handful of boys walking behind me and Kid B's having sneaked up behind me to goose me. Oh, the humiliation I felt!
Fast forward to the late 1970s. My mother is undergoing open-heart surgery, I have flown into Kansas City to lend support, and I am sitting in the waiting room while Mom is in surgery. I overhear three elderly women (probably not as old as I am now!) who have fallen into conversation. One is telling the other two women about the wonderful preacher from her church. She goes on at great length about how caring and devoted he is. She calls him Reverend B. Sitting there, I recall that Kid B's father was a Reverend B. However, when Reverend B shows up in the waiting room, it is obviously not Kid B's father - Reverend B is of my own generation!
When it is obvious that Reverend B has completed his conversation with his parishioner, I introduce myself to him. I tell him the name to which I was born. I ask if we did not attend school together at B elementary school and S high school. He did attend the schools during the specified years, but he has no memory of a girl by my name. I tell him that he has given me new hope for humanity - that if Kid B can become the man that Reverend B has become, there is still hope - that I would not have given a plugged nickel for his chances of becoming the man he has obviously become. He grins and says, "I was pretty ornery, wasn't I?"
Story 2: A few years before the encounter in Story 1, I was subjected to an oral exam to defend my thesis that was in partial fulfillment of requirements for an MS degree.
Again, fast forward - this time to the early 1990s. I am at a retail establishment in Wichita that specializes in science education items. I am browsing binoculars, hoping to find a replacement for a recently-stolen pair, when I run into one of the professors (younger than me) who had served on my orals committee. I introduce myself and remind him how we know one another. He doesn't have a clue who I am.
Story 3: Just recently, in reading a birding report posted by a person who, obviously, lives nearby and from whose name, I infer her to be married to another of the professors who served on my orals committee. I email her with a bit on local birding and ask that she extend my greetings to the professor (if she is, indeed, married to him) and to thank him for his courtesy during the oral exam. Although I had taken at least one class from the professor, his wife tells me that he has no remembrance of me.
Conclusions:
1) I am neither so smart nor so stupid as to be memorable.
2) I am neither so saintly nor so vile as to be memorable.
3) I am neither so beautiful nor so ugly as to be memorable.
4) Coupled with the fact that, during multiple attempts in the period 1959-2010, no one has ever been able to produce a "good" set of fingerprints off of my fingers, I conclude that I missed a perfect opportunity to have lived a life of high crime! Witnesses would not recall me and there would be no fingerprints left at the scenes.
How would your own life of crime have gone?
This posting wandered far from the path that was in my mind when I started writing it; but, what the heck? Maybe the original path will come to mind, again, later! *laughing*
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