Ten years and four months ago - On June 6th, 1994, I graduated from Tahanto Regional High School. Since that day, I've gone to college, worked, traveled, fallen in love and most recently bought a house. Last night, on Saturday, October 2nd, 2004 I went to my 10 year high school reunion.
My high school was small. It was a regional school of two towns and my class was the smallest class ever - there were just 32 of us. We were the first class to have 100% of our graduates go onto higher education. Now, ten years later, our life long class president Valerie has gathered us together once again. I counted 20 "Stags" (our mascot) and about 19 spouses/significant others/fiancés/dates/partners.
Saturday morning I was IMing Brian about the over/under for attendance for the evening. The Vegas line was 16 1/2. I picked the under. Brian picked the over. I owe him a beer.
In attendance, the TRHS class of 1994 (Rebecca, Tom, Jim, Sarah H., Jessica, Heather S., Missy G., Lauren, Heather Y., Ericka G., Scott, Karen, Sarah C., Gaelyn, Lynsay, Tori, Sonya, Brian, Val, Matt, and me - Dave). [Picture to come soon!].
What I was feeling about - my high school 10 year reunion. I was actually a little nervous going in to the restaurant for the dinner. Was I dressed up enough? What was the dress code? Would anyone be there that I would talk to? Can I remember the good parts of high school?
I feel like so much of my life started once I got to college and I made my way through Northeastern and had some real experiences. Its hard for me to look back on high school for some good lessons I learned that I could tell you. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to go to this reunion thing.
Avery thought I was crazy. I told her I would rather be neurotic and over think every little detail than over think every little detail and be called a political commentator. What if this happens, or what if that happens, in the end Avery is right again, it doesn't matter. All those details don't matter. Later in the evening I would talk to Sarah C. about being nervous about coming - and neither of us had any idea what we were nervous about. It was good to be able to share this little tidbit of my neurosis.
I was happy to see that everyone that made it to the dinner was stable, happy for the most part, in a good mood to brag about where their life was going. Perhaps the bad stories stayed away, because tonight everyone I talked to had news about home buying, marriages and children. It was really fun to see 20 other people who were all my age (28 next Monday!) that were all going through the same stage of life.
Everyone I talked to fell into one of these three categories:
-Getting Married, Gotten Married
-Having children, children with a baby sitter tonight
-Have just bought a house
It made my crazy job quitting, road traveling, Berlin living, spiked haired life seem to fit in just fine. Jobs had been lost and new jobs had been found. Life for all of us moved on at about the same pace (for the 20 of us who appeared) and no one really seemed to jump so far out of our "class system" in life - where they were too much to appear at a dinner on a Saturday night in October. (No one was too rich, too famous, too poor, too much on the run from the law to make it to the dinner - well, at least the 20 who appeared anyways).
A few statistical notes:
-Everyone in my class who attended was caucasian
-Everyone who was there with a partner, as far as I could tell, had a partner of the same race
-It was basically 40 white people from central Massachusetts eating and talking and drinking together
I sure hope that in every other life in our class people were able to get the heck out of Berlin and Boylston for a little while and see that there are other people who are different in our country. I only say this because I feel that I grew up almost completely deprived of any diversity. We were all different, but we all were basically the same.
Another Note:
-No one (for a tiny class of 32) ended up getting together with anyone else from our class. Everyone had gone off and found someone special who didn't graduate in June of 1994 from Tahanto Regional High School.
In the end I was happy I went. Avery and I were there until about 10:45 - so almost four hours of talking to people. It was good to see everyone and to meet the people my high school friends had gone on to meet.
I think its amazing who the person you are with becomes who you are. In ten years I had about a million crazy experiences. From college keg parties to early morning flights all across the country to Belize and to Morocco and falling in love and breaking up and finding new love and buying cars and now a house and all the great friends I made at Northeastern and at camp and different jobs and my parent's house on the cape and just around Boston. At the high school reunion, all of your experiences are culminated in who you are and who your date is. This is the person people see you with as being what your life is like now. This is the person who has heard the stories and knows the details and is part of your life, in so much that this person is your life. This person represents what you have become, as much as you yourself can show what you've become.
When I looked around the room I recognized people and saw couples paired up. I know most people can't imagine what my last 10 years have been like (unless they read a lot of this website in the past couple of years) and I know that I will never know all of the wild and life changing experiences of just 20 of these people that helped to shape my own youth. When I met their partners I had a little tiny insight into their lives and all in all I was happy to see that everyone was happy. That was what was the most important to me. Not that anyone was wicked rich or powerful or famous. But that whatever they had been able to do had worked out for them.
Finally, I wanted to mention that Berlin and Boylston, despite the towns own lack of diversity (or in spite of it!) have strong magnetic powers over the class of 1994. A large majority either lives in Berlin or Boylston or has decided to buy (where affordable) in Clinton, West Boylston, Leominster, Fitchburg or Worcester. The small town and the people and the families most of all have engrained a sense of home.
I can't wait for the 20th anniversary to see a bunch of 10 year olds wandering around with their 37/38 year old parents!
It's been the same thing over and over since Monday - work on the furniture project, call NY, work, call, scrape varnish off, call, sand varnish off, wait for call back, sand one more time before adding finish, call, add finish, wait for call from NY, sand off drip marks, call NY, add second coat, call, wait for callback, sand some more, start to scrape the next piece. So far, 1 of 18 pieces completed, though 15 of 18 have been started.
Avery was driving around Cambridge, dropping off extra equipment (a palm OS laptop) while I was at the host committee office getting more stuff. Always the packrat, I think I actually found something useful - a plastic bin for carrying more stuff. I headed to Central Square to meet Wendy and Avery. We headed over to Broadway Avenue in Somerville (near the old neighborhood where 544 Productions was born) to see Wendy and Justin's new place. We all talked for a bit (Justin and I mostly talked about skateboarding in and around Boston and how to make 544 Productions successful). W and J are off to Cali. for a San Fran vacation. I lived with Justin for six months back in 2000. Avery lived with them for about 9 months in 2002 and 2003. Before we left Wendy and Justin each gave spikey haired Dave a pat on the head. Avery and I said our goodbyes, gave hugs and drove back to Berlin. 
My dad's Lion's club buddy Mark is a computer hardware and OS guru. Last month my dad blew away parts of his computer and Mark came to the rescue. Today, around 1:30pm, Mark pulled into the driveway to help out with my computer. He looked at if for about 20 minutes. We re-booted a bunch of times trying to get it to come through in one of the many safe modes. Eventually we gave up and decided to bring it back to his place (just across town) to work in his home computer room.
