Reunion Plans

       Recently I was contacted by some old classmates to join a reunion committee
for our eighth grade graduating class.   I immediately said yes, and we met for dinner
at a small place in Conshohocken.   The meeting lasted a couple of hours, and it
probably could have went all night. We had such a good time talking and reminiscing
about the old neighborhood, all the different people, the nuns and the one teacher we had.  I can't believe we were finally able to set a date and finalize details.

       It has been fifty years since that grade school graduation, the year started off in the fall of 1963.  Less than three months into the journey our world was shattered by the
assassination of President Kennedy.  We knew then our lives had been changed. All of
a sudden it seemed like we were sucked into a vortex spinning out of control. Three months later, we were caught up in the tumultuous frenzy of the " British " invasion,
led by the Beatles.  Our knowledge of what we thought was music was completely
changed.  I have to admit, to me it was for the better, I can spend hours listening to
the Beatles, even to this very day.  In the spring of that same year the civil rights
movement started to take root in America, and we were bombarded by horrific images
on our television screens of defenseless black Americans being hanged, or having fire hoses turned on them, or being beaten by police wielding "billy clubs ".  There was also the matter of a small conflict that was starting to escalate in Southeast Asia.
Viet Nam was in the beginning stages of the next "hot spot" for the United States.
Through all this we somehow managed to carry on with our goal of finishing our
elementary education so we could take that next step to high school.

      Since the reunion meeting, I have been assigned to look up the graduates from that class. Some I have seen and been in touch with all these years. Quite a few I am sorry to say have passed away. Others , thanks to the invention of social media, I have been able to contact.  The one constant I have found in everyone I have talked to, is they all
remember those days and they all have a strong bonding to the members of the class.
I will admit there are a few exceptions.

     The reunion will bring us together, in a physical sense, but as I talk to my former
classmates I get the feeling that they have not forgotten, who we were, and how those times made an impression on our lives.  Most of all for better or worse, we have a strong sense of kinship.   We will always be a part of each other's memories, and
 how those formidable times changed our lives.