Ready Or Not, It's Time For The 40th High School Reunion... Fasten Your Seatbelts!

Mr. Snooty and I both graduated the same year from high school, the only difference being that I graduated from boarding school and he, from public high school. That year was 1970 and those were turbulent times, my friends. Well, they were actually at the tail end of those turbulent times, but still seem chaotic in my mind's eye.


In 1969 and 1970, prior to graduation, Led Zeppelin released its first album ever, Richard Nixon took his place in the White House as president succeeding Lyndon Johnson, a blowout occurred on Union Oil's Platform spilling over 100,000 gallons of oil onto Santa Barbara beaches, the Beatles performed their last concert together on top of the Apple Records building in London, the Boeing 747 made its virgin flight, "The Godfather" novel was released, Golda Meir became the first female prime minister to India, the Harvard University Administration building was seized by 300 SDS students, Blind Faith made their debut gig, the Weathermen took control of the SDS Headquarters in Chicago, the war in Viet Nam raged on, student protests continued against the war, the My Lai Massacre occurred, The Beatles broke up, the Ohio National Guard killed 4 Kent State students during a protest against the U.S. invading Cambodia (a neutral country), Jimi Hendrix died of *drug complications*, Janis Joplin died of a heroin overdose, and the graduating class of 1970 said goodbye to high school and hello to whatever waited for us.

During his senior year of high school Mr. Snoots was Prom King (aka Catoico [CATtle, OIl, COtton] King). Thirty three years later our daughter was also Catoico Queen. I guess the apple never really does fall far from the tree, right? To add to that, Mr. Snooty's mother was on the Catoico Court in the late 1930's. I never knew that until SD was Catoico Queen.




Anyhoo,  those of us left alive in spite of our lifestyles, will be gathering this weekend to celebrate being alive having graduated 40 years ago. (Of course you know we're all going to the reunion just to see who still looks good and who doesn't, right?) As with most small cities, there are always lots of characters you want to see and still others you really don't want to see. However, it's a package deal, so one has to take the bad along with all the good. Fortunately, KK of Mid Life Gals will be in attendance since this is also her Alma Mater. We have great plans and pranks conjured up for this weekend so I can hardly wait for her arrival.
 

The list of those who are deceased almost rivals the list of those who are attending. Does that say something about our particular generation? Ummm. Yeah. Hello. It was 1970 for crying out loud. Excesses were not managed in those days. They were merely excesses. No one knew the terms *enabler* or *rehab*. We were the pioneers and the guinea pigs for mind expanding geniuses like David Oslee and Timothy Leary. Make that *unknowing guinea pigs*. Some of us survived. Some of us survived for a while. And, some of us are still in the process of surviving. Others did not make it. We don't mourn for them because they made their choices, the same as we did.


Now I have to go practice saying "You haven't changed a bit!" with a straight face......