Comments | wombat_socho: Oxon Hill reprise

wombat_socho

Oxon Hill reprise

May 20, 2013 11:29

I don't think I'd been back to my old high school since I graduated in 1977. Why would I? I didn't feel any great attachment to it while I was there, and in fact turned in paperwork for a transfer to Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt for what would have been my senior year. (It was turned down, of course.) I was dating a girl from ( Read more... )

back in the day

Comments 8

Reunions anonymous May 20 2013, 15:41:22 UTC

Not all they're cracked up to be. Went to my first and only several years ago and likely would never go to another.
Always felt that if high school wasn't mandatory I might not have completed one year.

Re: Reunions wombat_socho May 20 2013, 16:15:56 UTC

Part of the problem with reunions is that unless we've been hanging out or staying in close touch with our classmates these last...well, coming onto forty years now, for the Class of '77, it's really a bunch of strangers meeting and trying to find common ground. I probably shouldn't have gone to the last once, since I wound up flunking the Foreign Service Exam the next day and bedridden with a systemic infection a few days after that - but I can't really blame that on the reunion, it was more a case of me being dumb and trying to do too much at once.

Glad to read your comments anonymous May 20 2013, 15:43:23 UTC

I was going to go but life wound up getting in the way. Himself is bothered by health problems for which we are still seeking diagnosis. He was too fatigued to come and I decided not to leave him alone. I felt alienated while I endured my servitude there, but have recently discovered through Facebook that some of the people I didn't know then are actually kinds cool, and I would have enjoyed face-time. But the place is a shell and many of the memories it held are better left alone.

Re: Glad to read your comments wombat_socho May 20 2013, 15:46:50 UTC

This would make more sense to me if you'd signed it or at least left your initials...whoever you are.

Re: Glad to read your comments anonymous May 20 2013, 20:48:18 UTC

I kind of feel like you. Started sophomore year with a lot of friends from junior high, but had grown apart from most of them over the couple years there. Then was the "star" in sort of a scandal, that lost me some friends as well. Since growing up and getting on FB, though, I've met some former classmates and other alumni that I really do enjoy, both on FB, and at a few in-person functions I've attended. Wish I'd seen wombat socho there on Saturday. Maybe we both would have had more fun.

Re: Glad to read your comments wombat_socho May 21 2013, 14:35:04 UTC

It's a distinct possibility, mystery commenter!

I didn't attend...but... anonymous May 20 2013, 16:09:05 UTC

while I do have tons of memories from my years at OHHS and graduating in 1976, you now have made me wonder just how many after us know the history behind those temporary classrooms that housed the AFJROTC 11th Squadron. I was not a member of the program, but I lived every day of it from its beginning until 1978. It would have been extremely sad for me to go and not see them standing out there as well...now I am glad I didn't have to go through those emotions Saturday. I can remember what used to be out there, who started the program, what he gave to the students of OHHS and the memories he helped create from Homecomings to Military Balls and Reviews, The Helmsmen, Senior OC Trips, the bands hired to play all of the dances at the school. He was more than a teacher...he was a father, a confidant, an advisor, a rescuer to any student who needed him ( ... )

Re: I didn't attend...but... wombat_socho May 20 2013, 16:12:35 UTC

Indeed, after a few years of active duty, I had a lot more respect and appreciation for your Dad than I did as a surly teenager wearing Air Force blue. But I'm pretty sure he knows.