My husband and I are in the Kansas City area to attend my 60th high school class reunion. That’s right 60! I really, really don’t know where the time has gone.

Gallatin High School, Class of ’64

Some 20 of us with gather shortly at a Saltgrass Steakhouse to reminisce and reconnect. Many of the 50 in our class are gone now. And we’ll remember them fondly. I have a PowerPoint ready taking us from first grade to a mini-60th a few classmates who live in this area held last summer.

Remembering a different time

As I prepared the PowerPoint, scant remarks and some quiz questions to keep conversation flowing, I remembered a different time. Most of our moms didn’t work outside the home, except perhaps part-time. Our parents and our teachers attended church together. Most of us attended church youth groups.

We had a lovely freedom

I don’t know if young people today enjoy the kind of freedom we had from 1952-1964. We rode our bikes all over town and even outside into the country. My friend, Gayle, and I had a pet cemetery in her back yard where we buried a mama bat and babies we found and tried to keep alive, two kittens my dachshund Copper killed, dead birds we found, some of her pet rabbits and perhaps other sundry things.

We had a fairy village at the back of a huge vacant field behind my parents’ house. It was demolished when two new houses went in, much to our dismay. Every August, Gayle’s birthday party was a sleepover at her house after attending the drive-in movie in nearby Cameron. In our teens we met boys from nearby towns there and even dated some of them. Gayle married one, in fact.

Drugs were not a “thing”

I knew no one who used drugs. I only heard about heroin addicts in an occasional television report or in a movie. I think a few of the guys drank sometimes. But I knew no girls that did. And “nice” girls didn’t smoke, though quite a few guy classmates did.

I remember our principal, Cliff Agenstein asking me once if he should kick guys he saw smoking around town off the football team. I don’t know why he asked me, but I said “no.” And I’m not sure why. My senior year in high school three couples were together on New Year’s Eve. We shared one bottle of champagne, and I thought we were being bad!

And no one had heard of child trafficking.

Teen pregnancy was an issue

There wasn’t a lot to do in Gallatin except go to a movie, grab a snack after, then go park. Several girls in my class got pregnant, then married, in high school. Some dropped out. Most are still married. I really admire that, having been married more than once myself.

Most of us scattered

Many of us went off to college and never came home full time. Others joined the military. Some found jobs in many parts of the U.S. and settled there. Family farms that were small as I grew up became larger, some of them corporate. Walmart in nearby Cameron eventually shuttered much of the local business. The county seat weekly newspaper my dad ran for 50 years shuttered a few years ago. No local business, no advertising. No advertising, nothing to pay the bills. That’s happening everywhere–in towns big and little–for reasons like those above and due to Internet information and shopping.

But we’re coming together now

Now, in our late 70s we’re gathering again, perhaps for the last time. Some of us may stay in touch a bit better now. It’s easier with our electronics after all. I would say politics should be off the table today. I know a few are confirmed Democrats like me. But I saw just a few Trump signs on the way up here from Arkansas, no Harris signs. My guess is we have lots of GOP-leaning folks. But I really hope the subject doesn’t come up.

Favorite teachers, Mexico trip

We’ll recall some favorite teachers. Among them are Alberta Volk, who taught high school English and, for some of us, fifth grade. Also, we have Kathryn Barker, one of our 7th and 8th grade teachers, as well as Harriet Cravens, who had taught some of our parents. Miss Cravens left campus in her fur cape every day at noon for lunch at a famous eatery in Gallatin, the McDonald Tea Room. The Tea Room, burned some years ago, was a beautiful structure built by a husband to showcase his wife’s cooking. The restaurant was named by Duncan Hines in the 1950s as one of the best places to eat in America. But I digress. We may talk about C.T. Richards, our high school math teacher. He taught me one phrase that’s stayed with me. “If you can’t keep up, how in the world are you ever going to catch up?”

Reunion time, happy time

It’s the 60th high school reunion. It’s a grand day. And I’m so glad to be here. I just don’t know where our time has flown.