Most of us, I’m confident, have some rather significant events in our lives that bring joy and excitement. It could be marriage, the birth of a child, perhaps a first grandchild, a new home, or retirement. Somewhere in all those events many of us will celebrate our 50th high-school reunion. That is just what happened to me this summer when the 1961 class of Servite High School in Detroit gathered in Frankenmuth, Michigan, to reminisce, reacquaint, and revisit all those memorable days.

Out of a graduating class of 134, there were 64 alumni in attendance. What with spouses and friends, there was a total of 134, with 28 coming from out of state, who celebrated this occasion. A sad note was learning that 16 of our classmates are now deceased.

This was time, though, for recalling fond memories of our high school days. The 1950s and early 1960s were comparatively innocent days, but we managed our share of mischief, much to the dismay of the saintly nuns who attempted to inculcate us with some strong moral values. Perhaps a verse from a Kenny Chesney song best describes those days accurately:

Man, I don’t know where the time goes, but it sure goes fast, just like that. We were wanna-be rebels who didn’t have a clue, with our rock ‘n’ roll T-shirts and our typically bad attitudes, had no excuses for the things that we’d done. We were brave, we were crazy, we were mostly young.

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