34 Degrees at Night
Early tomorrow morning I leave the rain drenched streets of Atlanta to attend my wife's high school reunion at Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan. I've never been to Michigan, or quite possibly that far north before in my life, so it should be an interesting, shivering, experience.
My wife received her formal training in ballet there before entering the "dancer circuit" of professional dance companies, as have countless other artists who graduated from the school. Attend any performing arts production, whether it's dance, chamber music, theater or others, and chances are Interlochen will be listed in somebody's biography in the playbill. The place has a solid track record of turning out spectacular talent.
To be enthusiastic about returning to a former school is quite alien to me, for when I attended high school and college the only thing on my mind was getting out. I hated it. All of my high school / college reunion announcements hit the trash unopened, while my wife opens hers with joy and pastoral visions of "returning home" to see her teachers again. Her teachers?
Looking back, I probably wouldn't have hated it as much if I had found something to be passionate, dare say obsessive about, other than girls and weekend plans. There are just some people in the world, including me, I believe, that only find respect for the educational experience with age. Today I am far more curious, and studious, than my youth - but at times I truly wonder how different my life would have turned out had I attended the right school and found a teacher that illuminated a light inside I never knew existed. I'm far from unhappy doing what I'm doing and the life I have today, but still, you do wonder.
Comments
I just recently discussed my own high school experience: http://www.iamgeneric.com/archives/000158.html
And in very similiar fashion, my reunion and alumni invites were tossed as immediate as I saw the school's name on the envelope.
Posted by: Rony Tako at September 26, 2002 10:11 AM
Incredible...
I had many friends that went to interlochen, even an old high-school buddy that taught there.
Let me welcome you in advance. Where are you flying into?
Posted by: Doug H. at September 26, 2002 11:58 AM
Yeah, i can never understand the enthusiasm for the old school days...for years I had nightmares where I was lost in the building (an 1890s Gothic Revival edifice) my dream-mind warping it into a complex maze. It wasn't a bad school per se: it was a small, semi-private Jesuit boys' school so there were small class sizes, and they encouraged debate, participation, logic and questioning things. That has stayed with me longer than anything; it was a shock in college to meet kids from public school backgrounds who had learned the "don't say anything, ever" passive aggressive approach to learning.
Looking back there were the usual strata every high school has; the stoners/losers/geeks/jocks/keeners etc. The one thing some kids had that others didn't was self-confidence. I never had it; I only really got it years later from doing things like improv comedy (cheaper than therapy). If hindsight is 20/20, it should also have a sticker that says "objects in mirror only appear closer than they are." 5 years of bad experiences get telescoped together, to become an unending litany of boredom, failure, pain, embarassment, resentment. It's far away now, and my life is 180 degrees different than it was then, but the scars still make me twinge occasionally.
Posted by: AJ Kandy at September 26, 2002 12:03 PM
As a Michigan resident, let me wish you a nice trip up here. You're getting the very, very end of summer. A few weeks ago it was 20 degrees warmer, and yet, a few weeks from now everything with be gold and orange and crimson and brown.
And if you have time, pay Ann Arbor a visit (20 minutes west of Detroit). Ann Arbor is fantastic this time of year, a truly great place to be in.
Posted by: Phil Dokas at September 26, 2002 1:48 PM
me too.
Posted by: Jane Doe at September 26, 2002 9:58 PM
Wow, you've got a lot of fans up here in Michigan. Michigan in the fall is wonderful and the weather right now is excellent. Hope you have a great time.
Posted by: Kristian Walker at September 27, 2002 7:10 AM
I suppose I'm fortunate in that I didn't have the horrible high school experiences that so many seem to have had. However, I will say that I found my h.s. reunion to be somewhat anticlimatic. Of all the people I went to h.s. with, the ones I really wanted to catch up with weren't there, and the ones I truly give a damn about I still see on a regular basis.
Posted by: Bob at September 27, 2002 10:44 AM
I recently graduated high school in a small community. There, the students don't have to attend reunions. 90% of the students who've graduated high school stayed in that community for the rest of their lives, and many even went to college, got their teaching certificates, and teach at the very same school they graduated from... scary isn't it?
Posted by: Dot at September 27, 2002 1:51 PM
I'm going to stay out of this discussion, since I'm still IN high school, and a reunion (if one ever comes to pass) is many, many years down the pipe, hopefully once the memories of horror have faded and I cease to remember how much I hated it.
Of course, I've got one up on you all - I went and started a site to bitch about my experiences. Isn't the Internet great?
Posted by: Brandon at September 28, 2002 3:36 AM
I do not miss 99% of my schoolmates. But I do miss my physics and my biology teachers. They were just about the only who encouraged actually thinking in class. The rest was crap.
Posted by: nmk at September 29, 2002 6:14 AM
