It was a beautiful drive--rainy, but so green! Lots of folks think I-5 through the San Joaquin Valley is boring to the max, but I like it! The hills and agriculture (minus the feed lots, I must say) are lovely to me any time of year, but especially spring.I arrived in Glendale at my little hotel on Glenoaks at about 3:30--plenty of time to settle in. One of the women in the class had arranged for a block of rooms at the Homestead Studio Hotel, which was very nice--including a kitchenette. My hummus looked quite lonely in the apartment-sized fridge. It was just about 10 minutes from stage one, which was an informal gathering at a lounge in the Hilton down the road.
The person from my class with whom I had been in closest communication over the years is my friend, Brett--and we had often lost touch for many years at a time. Last actual eye contact had been at the 25th. He lives in Saratoga, near San Jose, and we decided to attend this thing very nearly on the condition that the other also be there. He was the first classmate I saw as we were driving around in the parking lot under the Hilton.
No fancy dinners. No loud music or dancing. Just visiting. That's what we all wanted. I guess that makes us sound like the geezers we are, now. The Hilton thing was overwhelming: about 50 folks, all hugging, and exclaiming and trying to catch up too quickly...so many half-conversations interrupted by another and another in a two-hour talk-fest. A few good friends I hadn't expected turned up, too! This sort of thing is fun, but so exhausting for the cave-person-likes of me.
Next stop was the home of the parents of one of our classmates who live up in the hills above town. I had to follow someone to find it. It was lovely, and quieter, and we had brought snacks and desserts to eat. Conversations could be longer, but it was so difficult not to be distracted by a new arrival behind the present chat one was having. I'm very bad at managing this sort of thing.
A few hours later, some (including me) had been invited to, yet, another home for more of the same. I stood up to get my stuff together and knew I wouldn't be making that one.
During the conversations Friday night, so many locations in Glendale had been referenced and it was clear that, for me, nearly all the streets and landmarks had been wadded up in a ball and thrown in a dark corner of my brain. I couldn't remember where anything was. On top of that, Glendale has changed quite a lot in the last 40+ years and I have passed through just a very few times to assimilate those changes. Our high school, for one thing--we were the last class to occupy the old (c.1911) building. The "new" one (c.1969) had no memories for us. Freeways cut through town after we graduated, including the street on which our old house is located. Huge buildings grew downtown and shopping centers mushroomed. Even our landmark church had been destroyed by the '71 earthquake and rebuilt. And our families had moved away shortly after we had.
So, Saturday morning, I took myself on a 3 1/2-tour of Glendale. I visited the high school, junior highs (middle schools, now, and I had attended both) and the two home neighborhoods. I even cruised one of Tom's parents' former houses. I crisscrossed all the main streets and some of the little ones, from Brand Park to Forest Lawn. and Burbank to Eagle Rock. I got reacquainted with Glendale--and it's prettier than I'd remembered.
There were two more scheduled events. The first was the main one for the weekend. It was just a stand-up snack/dessert affair in a room at Brand Park where some of us went early to set up our art and the food. I think about 70 people attended, all told (our class numbered close to 600). We made our own name tags from photo-copied yearbook pages and just stood around talking--a little more laid-back, this time. In the background, someone (I'm not sayin' who) tried to play some louder music and get some karaoke going, but it didn't take. He had missed the memo, clearly.
It was all fun and the artwork was impressive and eclectic and we all had a big time trying to cover some of the span of years that had passed between us in an impossibly short time. We broke after three hours, or so and split up for dinner. Our little group--quieter and more targeted, still--ended up at a hip, wine-fanciers'-sort of restaurant on South Brand in our own room. With all of that, though, Brett and I still hadn't spent much time talking just to each other, so we planned to meet for breakfast next morning.
Which we did. It was a great way to tie it all up. He left to catch a plane back to Saratoga and I started my little journey back to Grass Valley.
Am I at "an age" where this sort of thing matters more to me? We are among other things, accumulations of our memories, and I feel as though I gained access to more of them this weekend. We knew each other in the first 20 years of our lives and I'm reconnecting with some of these same souls at the beginning of, perhaps, the last 20 years for most of us. We looked a bit (sometimes more than a bit) different and the yet the same. We sounded more the same than different. Of course, we were quite aware of many who were no longer with us--two of my best friends as a senior among them. That didn't make any sense, at all.
All of this continues to impress upon me the value of the newer tools we have to stay connected to people. I, myself, have terrible skills in this area. Facebook, for all its faults, facilitates the connections in such a way as even I can manage. I'm grateful for it. And I hope it will make more of this kind of weekend possible as we continue on...
The photos, in order from the top: a yearbook cake decorated like our senior year (actual book on left); at the home of a classmate--Dave Ida displaying some random item he'd seen lying around; Kathy, Karen, Chuck--all Roosevelt peeps, in fact, Karen's and my fams lived in the same apartment on Palmer; Jill, Brett, Louie and Louie's daughter at Brand Library; Brett and Jill at Palate.
