Nothing's trivial at reunion

What makes a great class reunion?
Hard work, for one thing. The committee that put together last weekend’s gathering of the Portland High School class of 1966 started emailing and meeting and discussing details nearly a year in advance.
Participation is the real key. The more alumni who attend, the better the reunion. And it’s always harder to get the local folks than the ones who come from California or Mississippi or Louisiana for the occasion.
And then there’s the matter of tradition.
The ’66 crowd has developed its own set of rituals and events that make the reunion a little more special.
For instance, though the real reunion was Saturday, the party started Friday. That’s when classmate Ruth Ann Widman and her husband Dale opened their home to the entire class and their spouses for a night of low-key socializing.
My part of that event has been to develop a class trivia test. I think this year’s test was my fourth.
The first three drew upon my memory and whatever I could glean from old yearbooks and old newspaper pages from our era in high school.
Cheating is always encouraged, and there’s plenty of lively conversation over the answers.
But there’s only so much trivia one can come up with from high school, and the well was beginning to run dry.
So, this year, I tried something new.
Making use of the fact that the Internet has allowed us all to be more connected than ever, I put out a plea to classmates: Tell me something about your life since high school that others in the PHS ’66 group may not know or begin to guess.
It took awhile, but the stories started flowing back to me.
The result was a two-page test that was passed out at Ruth Ann’s after the party had begun to reach critical mass.
Consider a few of the questions, and you’ll begin to understand how much fun we had.
• “What member of the class worked briefly as a ‘dime a dance girl’ in the 1970s?”
• “What member of the class performed a wedding ceremony in a supermarket?”
• “What member of the class bicycled 50 miles through the Florida Keys on his 50th birthday?”
• “What member of the class had David Letterman help him get his car out of an impound lot?”
• “What member of the class once drove a car for 82 straight hours?”
• “What member of the class was involved in the Munich Olympics?”
As I said, it’s an interesting group of folks and we’ve been living interesting lives.
Each question was multiple choice, so I was able to work in the names of dozens of classmates. It was a ball.
Give it a try next time your reunion rolls around.
You’ll have fun. But I guarantee you won’t have more fun than the class of ’66.[[In-content Ad]]