I don't know about you, but I have found that my recent burst of activity on Facebook with fellow RHS alumni has been somewhat of a getting-back-to-my roots experience.
From Kindergarten stories shared with some of you in messages to prom pictures posted on our Flickr group, I am just now realizing the history we have with each other - that each one of you carry some piece of my own history with you - to different degrees of course. And vice versa. Here are some examples:
Laura Carelton Bagley and I (Sylvia Dana) have found that we have the same picture in our baby books. Turns out, we lived in the same apartment house on Oak Street in Rochester, Mich., for a time, until she moved to the apartment across the street. (Pictured here is Laura's birthday party. She must have been turning 3 or so. (Who knows why my mom still made me sit in a high chair...ugh) Dylan Roginski - who moved away before we graduated - is also pictured; he lived in the same apartment house as Laura. Amberly Ervin told me I was her first friend when she moved to Rochester at age 5. She was even able to describe the stairway in my apartment.
It was my Facebook interactions with my 1989 classmates that helped me make these specific discoveries as I dig out old pictures and the resurrected memories start filling in the blanks. It's truly a gift.
I'm not sure whey I never really made these connections - or at least any that stuck - in junior high or high school. Perhaps it was because I went to 12 different elementary schools, only attending McGregor for part of Kindergarten and part of first grade. When I returned to Rochester from 7th grade on, it took me a while to feel like I fit in. In fact, I don't think I felt like one of you until our junior year. Now, I'm so grateful for the opportunity to reconnect to part of my own history with all of you.
I hope you are enjoying the treasure of this experience too. I know some of you are...Harold Greeney wrote and said that if I would have asked him a month ago, he would have told me he didn't care much about the reunion or about high school. But now he's appreciating being able to reconnect online, even though he lives an exciting life in the jungles of Ecuador.
Have you discovered any high school strangers that were actually childhood friends? Are you making new friends with old classmates?
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