Column: Something About Nothing, by Julie Seedorf

Is it time yet? Is it time yet? Those words might have meaning for the Wells-Easton High School class of 1968 if we still remember some of the things we did in high school. It was a skit we performed at, and I can’t remember, what was possibly Senior Skit Day.

Now is it time yet? Yes it is. It is time for our 45th class reunion. As I think of that skit I am remembering lyceums. That seemed to be what we called any program we had in the auditorium in those days. We got to get out of class for an hour or two for a lyceum.

As I was thinking about “the old days” I wondered what the heck lyceum meant. Did we question what it meant in our day or did we just take it for granted that if there was a lyceum we got out of school and headed for the auditorium?

I checked the encyclopedia for the word. That is where my confusion came in. A lyceum is:

1.: a hall for public lectures or discussions.

2.: an association providing public lectures, concerts and entertainments.

Maybe in my older state I am remembering it wrong, but I think they always told us there was going to be a lyceum in the auditorium today. I apparently don’t get the gist of the meaning in the context of which I remembered it being presented to us. Or maybe it was presented to us wrong. Oh my, could a school mix up meanings and names?

Anyway, I got off the subject of class reunions. We are planning our 45th class reunion. I think I have attended every one. My husband, on the other hand, graduated from Albert Lea High School in 1966 and has not attended any one of his class reunions.

My class size was approximately 92 kids. We all knew one another, possibly not well, because of course there were cliques, and we all had our insecurities so we gathered with those we were most comfortable with.

As the years have progressed we have had fewer and fewer attendees at our reunions. We have lost many classmates. Perhaps some of the ones I don’t attend anymore still have memories of earlier reunions where not much had changed. The cliques were possibly still there and past hurts or snubs were still remembered, and so it is possible people don’t attend for those reasons.

I suspect the same happens for most class reunions. It has been 45 years for us, and people have changed. Life has happened for most of us and those life events have changed how we interact with each other, and it has also changed how we feel about ourselves. I realized that most of those insecurities that I had in high school were more about how I felt about myself and that impacted how I related to other people and how I let events and words affect me.

Now, many of the people that I was not close to in high school, and never would have suspected that I had any thing in common with, are now good friends. My insecurities kept me from getting to know some very good people. On so many occasions in high school those insecurities play out as snickering, harshness, unkind words, etc. We are older and wiser now.

I have heard the comments that “There is no one I care about seeing anymore.”

Two of my best friends from high school have died. There are others from our class who are no longer with us. Because of that I wish everyone left from our class would come back one more time. Life is too short, and we did have memories, good, bad, fun, sad, and it would be good to be together again because those memories made us the people we are today, good, bad or ugly. People might be surprised that they do care, and there are people they are glad to see once again.

There is something about coming together with those from the past that puts hard feelings to rest, laughing about crazy antics and silly teachers, and remembering our youth with those that were there.

If you are trying to make a decision to attend your class reunion this year, take a chance, you might have fun and make new memories with old friends.

 

Wells resident Julie Seedorf’s column appears every Monday. Send email to her at thecolumn@bevcomm.net.