I was supposed to be in Wilmington, Ohio this morning for my 60th class reunion but a bad back got in the way, and led to some thoughts.

                  IT’S A RAINY Saturday morning here in West Chester, PA. It’s a bit more sunny out in Wilmington, Ohio. I make note of that because that’s where I thought I would be this morning but my bad back stepped in to change my plans.

                  I was going to motor out to Wilmington, probably a nine-hour drive with old-man stops, to see my sister and attend my 60^th high school reunion. 

                  There aren’t that many folks left from the Wilmington Senior High School Class of 64. Well, at least not that many who are up to a long drive or a flight. Organizers say the response from away was not that good so I suspect the attendees will be mostly those within easy reach of Southern Ohio.

                  The venue sort of made it clear how much our class has aged, and shrunk. The Saturday evening part of the weekend will be in the community room at a retirement village. 

                  I would liked to have gone but at the same time it’s got me thinking back to my high school days. I was not one of the popular kids. I wasn’t a star athlete, didn’t have a hot car and so I more or less lived on the fringes.

                  I had friends, a teacher or two who changed my life, wrote for the school paper and got my first taste of journalism, but by and large, I was one of those kids who always felt like he was on the outside looking in. 

                  My Dad was the theater director at the local college, I liked theater and so I spent a lot of time out there. I also had a horse I kept at my grandfather’s place on the edge of town and that took up a fair amount of time. I did go trail riding, mostly with another guy and two girls from my class.

                  MY SENIOR YEAR I didn’t have a date for the prom, and neither did one of the girls I rode with so we just decided to go. I was surprised she didn’t have a date because she was pretty cute and nice. If we hadn’t been horse-riding buddies, I’d probably never have asked her. We had a good time. When the night was over I think we said “see ya” and that was that. I think if I’d kissed her I’d never been able to just ride horses down country lanes with her again.

                  Some time ago, when this reunion was just in the talking phase, a woman emailed me with the suggestion that some of us, mostly of a certain political persuasion, take a long walk in Sugar Grove cemetery on one of the days. She thought it would be a good idea to visit classmates and teachers and rouse them from their dirt naps.

                  That made me realize that a lot of the folks I’d really like to see at a reunion, I can’t. They’re gone. That includes some from the classes ahead of me and behind me that normally, on a trip back to the hometown, I would have stopped in to see. I just got word last week that one fellow I’d hoped to see died suddenly, so cross off another one.

                  I guess my overall feeling about high school is that it didn’t make a huge impression on me. I know for some people it seems high school was the end-all, be-all. I never felt that way. At one reunion back when we were all younger I was sitting at a table with a lot of the popular kids. They were talking about a great party and one of them said “you remember that don’t you, Rich?”

                  I had to shake my head and say “No, you never invited me to any of your parties.” Awkward. A moment of silence.

                  I moved on to Miami University (the original Miami in Oxford, Ohio) where everyone more or less started out on equal footing and you could decide what to be. Most of the high school athletes weren’t athletes anymore and the cheerleaders were just good-looking girls walking about campus. Cliques would form over time, of course, but for a while you had the chance to define yourself. 

                  All those thoughts aside, I wish I had been able to go out to Wilmington to mingle with my surviving classmates one more time. But, so it goes. Instead I’m sitting here with a heating pad on my back, a gentle rain falling outside.     

                  Rich Heiland is a retired journalist and semi-retired consultant, trainer and public speaker. During his journalism career he was a reporter, editor, publisher, college instructor, part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team and a National Newspaper Association Columnist of the Year honoree. He also writes the intodementia.com blog about his wife’s dementia and their experiences. He lives in West Chester, PA and can be reached at [email protected].