Two weeks ago, approximately a third of my high school graduation class from Kelowna gathered for our 30th reunion.
We couldnt have asked for a more classic Okanagan summer night. Blue sky, no clouds or wind, the thermometer at 31, the air that near-desert tang I miss so much on the soggy coast. There were about 40 of us, and we had an outdoor patio to ourselves at a golf course with a view to the sunlit side of Mount Boucherie, which gave our school its name.
So three decades after graduation, how were we doing?
Judging by the range of careers, not bad. Several of my classmates are in tech and science. One works at the Canadian Space Agency. Another manages a plastics company. A couple are lawyers. One is an architect, no surprise given his powerful artistic talent in school. Many are in medicine and counselling. One joined the UN and ran aid convoys in Bosnia during the civil war. One worked in radio. Another works in documentary film and TV. One manages a winery. Some run their own businesses. One owns his own massage studio here in Vancouver. One works at UBC. One is a roofer. One guy washes dishes and is the longest serving employee at his restaurant. Some are stay-at-home parents. At least one grad is in prison. My former next-door neighbour has been a mail carrier since school, and sounded like the happiest of us all.
The children of the once-vaunted ParticipACTION initiative, were an active cohort. We ski, board, play tennis and golf, hike, camp, travel and earn belts in martial arts. Many like me cycle. My friend Bernie, who in high school took his newly purchased Volkswagen Scirocco into a headlong crash and spent months in a wheelchair as a consequence, mountain bikes with guys half his age. A week before the reunion, he fell out of a tree and landed flat on his back on a roof trying to retrieve his kite. As in kite boarding, whatever that is.
The women remain gorgeous, although some who I dont remember noticing much in high school surprised me. I must have been blind back then, because now pushing 50 they are showstoppers. (Call me, Karen.)
At least three of our classmates have died. One was killed in a skiing accident. Two took their own lives. One of them called me after the 20th reunion, which I missed. I remember the call. He was gone soon after, and I didnt realize he was saying goodbye.
Some of our old teachers were there, and after three decades and all the kids that had gone through their classes they remembered us by name and face. I awkwardly tried to tell them that I retained the real lessons they taught. Poise from drama. Health from gym. Humanity from history. Headaches from physics.
Near the end of the night, as the crowd thinned out like many of the male hairlines there, a few of us gathered at a table and talked. How our old neighbourhoods have changed. How almost none us of can read restaurant menus without glasses. How were two years away from a colonoscopy. How our families have grown and how children take up so much time, and how you never want that time to end.
Graduating into a recession, we had a crappy start. We entered schools and careers just as governments cut back on the social spending theyd built up since the 60s. Tuition grants became loans. UI became mean-spirited EI. The boomers, to whom we officially belong as the tail end of the demographic, had the jobs. Then the houses. They could be the last with pensions. Same old.
But no wars or famines came to our homes, and we found careers and families as such we could. Weve had tragedy and happiness, failure and success. Just like everyone else whos ever lived.
During a trivia game that tested our memory of our school days, one of the reunion organizers read back part of my valedictorian speech from our graduation ceremony. It began with something like, Well, we made it. And I think my fellow students will agree, we deserved it.
Thirty years later, did we still deserve it? That question didnt matter anymore, not when a third of the class of 1981, all survivors in mid-life, gathered again on a summer night in a decent part of the world in a decent point in human history for wine, barbecue, memory and laughter.
Were lucky, more than one said.
And we are.
