Long time no see

It certainly has been a long time. Last Saturday I went to the 40 year reunion of my year from Ryde High School. It was held 40 years since we stated our Higher School Certificate exams. About 25 or more years ago there was a reunion for the whole school. This reunion has been several months in the organizing. The organizers were able to contact somewhat over half of the individuals on the class list that they were able to get hold of. I was able to provide several leads to help them find some class members that I had ran into over the years.

There were a few classmates that I had been in occasional contact with after I finished Uni but that gradually dwindled over the years. It gradually dwindled down to one and even then I was in more regular contact with her brother who had been in another year at school. Still I bumped into classmates now and then. Usually they recognized me rather than the other way around. The last time was at a food market in Sydney about a year or so ago.

So it was good to see some old faces. Some I recognized easily, some I had to be told. Even in the latter cases it wasn't hard to see the face you knew from school in the face in front of you.

Of course there was the finding what we had been doing since school. Mostly what you could picture them doing, but there were some surprises. The group has been scattered over much of the country and in a few cases overseas. Still more were still in the Sydney district than anywhere else. Some including me came from interstate for the reunion.

One thing I will have got out of this is where those classmates are who are up here in Brisbane. And also where the ones in Canberra and Sydney are. A fair few are now in country locations.

One of the things that happens at events like this is finding out the background behind what happened back then. Why certain people behaved in certain ways. Who had a crush on whom and was too shy to show it back then.

The reunion was held in a large pavilion at Bobbin Head in Kuring Gai Chase National Park a bit North of Sydney. A picnic area with a good view right next to Cowan Creek, an off shoot of Broken Bay. Generally, had a great time.