1987, Reloaded (Part I)

I found myself sitting across from Kelly, Kimberly, and Lisa. Next to Karen and Joy. Down the table from Kim, editor of The Gauntlet, our yearbook. Some of the above were on staff with me. We were laughing and reminiscing. I had seen a few of them over the years, others, not since high school graduation, 1987. Twenty-five years earlier. Some weeks back was a 3-day reunion weekend, one I would've never guessed I would attend, had you asked me 5 years before.

That was when I went to the 20 year, a less than inspiring night. One of the first entries in Lamplight Drivel ("Oh, Class of '87") documented my experience. It was not a complete disaster, as I got to catch up with a few old friends and even some folks I hadn't seen since elementary school. But overall it was, at best, an asterisk in my year. A listless night of mediocre food, bad music, and a group of mostly people I still didn't connect with. But this time was very different.

The catalyst was most certainly the "alternative" gathering that was scheduled. Three of the aforementioned women came together to plan a family-friendly afternoon of socializing that was specific in its guest list. It was not exclusionary, mind you, but designed for the "quieter" types who may have been turned off by the bigger, louder gatherings. Attended by louder, brasher individuals, usually. As the list was building on Facebook, I became very interested and excited to see so many long lost folks.

The "official" reunion was set for Friday night at a restaurant out in the suburbs. Wellington is a bedroom community from which many of my classmates came to attend classes at Forest Hill High School in the 1980s. Two years after we graduated, Wellington got its own hs, and FH changed, dramatically. This was in-your-face apparent as I joined many of my classmates on a tour of the current facility the night before the official gathering. A guy whose role of which I was unsure (coach? instructor?) at the school lead us around a modern structure which bore almost no ressemblance to our old school, which was razed in 2003.

I had watched the destruction as it happened, and remember seeing the wrecking ball sitting in the middle of the old gymnasium, which was visible from Interstate 95. I had been fortunate enough to wander the original halls a year or 2 before. After the new hs was completed, I took a nighttime tour (mainly outside) by myself of what looked like a penitentiary. No, I did not scale any fences. There was no fear of being arrested for trespassing, as the school always has night classes. It was depressing, but I hoped it would inspire what had become a lackluster place of higher learning into something great again, like it had been in my day and earlier.

Time has shown that what was in the last decade an "F" school has been upgraded several notches (FCAT pass rate and such). But evidence that fewer current students are college bound was hard to miss: banners telling students to do their homework (as if they were in elementary school) in many of the classrooms and even wooden coins with the slogan "Get Around Tuit" - encouraging them to get it together and take the GED - were found in the front office at the end of the tour. This was a far cry from the atmosphere of my day.

I could controversially trace FH's decline to the opening of Wellington's school, where more affluent students attend. Accordingly, more academically minded and motivated individuals. Listen, I don't paint in broad strokes and I'm someone who looks beyond what statistics merely suggest. Nonetheless, I find it's hard to argue with the prevelance of graduation rates and college attendance stats in schools with wealthier kids. FH has become largely populated with those for whom English is a second language. My argument is simplistic and I'm well aware of exceptions to every rule, but the results speak for themselves.

But back to the tour. About 40 of us spent that Thursday night being led through the school, aghast at the presence of an actual theater with a stage (we made do with a "gymnatorium") and a food court! The old buildings of yore were your typical South Florida prototype: CBS with outdoor hallways (windy, rainy days were always a blast!). The new structure was completely enclosed. It was beyond strange as we gawked at this comparatively sleek architecture. I felt like Crissy Hynde as she lamented her hometown in "My City Was Gone." I wonder if some of my out-of-town classmates felt that way about West Palm Beach as a whole.

The Municipal Golf Course is still right next to the school and nearly all of us adjourned there in a bar/restaurant afterward. We spent hours laughing and catching up and being amused by a waitress who did cartwheels near the table. A piece of the original school was being raffled off. THIS was how a reunion was supposed to be. That first night was so good, it was like what one of my classmates said, "If this was the whole reunion, I would've been satisfied!"

Yes. But there were still two more events.......


TO BE CONTINUED......