I never told you how my trip to SA went.
My school reunion was nothing how I expected.
Almost 20 years has gone by since my graduation. Let me tell you, we picked up where we left off and we all still look good. :)
We have aged gracefully and I am not the only one who gained weight!
It wasn't a class reunion so much as a reunion of folks who all happened to be there during the same few years. So it really was a social gathering.
Some of us coincidentally graduated there and others were not even close. My sister, for example was in the 8th and 9th grade while we were there. When it comes to our crazy escapades, she was a part of them.
Stealing beer mugs from the pubs, going to discos, ripping off Mercedes logos from the cars, going to the fair to ride the most dangerous, unsafe, rides on earth. Making our way thru the Hang Out on Saturday afternoons where all the coolest kids in the city stood around looking, well, ...cool. Clubbing 4 times every weekend (Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday night and Sunday afternoon).
Yeah, the geeks got geekier and the rest of us seem to have found our niche on this big blue marble too.
Actually, looking back, I think even the coolest of the cool were geeks at Izmir American High School!
San Antonio was a great location too. We were able to make a few phone calls and track down more people. We've all probably lived in the same town for years and just lost touch.
Ya see, we were a bunch of kids from all over the country tossed together in this little 5 story abandoned tobacco warehouse and expected to be the same after we got back to the States. I think not. So we went our separate ways trying to blend back into the world we left. Think Breakfast Club the day after. A world that didn't change much. We changed.
Sitting at the table eating Doner with 50 other brothers and sisters was a moment that you knew you fit in somewhere.
We do need to plan better though. We were always spur of the moment, loose planners. On Friday night, someone mentioned that SA has 2 Turkish restaurants, but one had closed only 2 weeks before. No one knew which closed but dammit we were gonna go eat some Turkish on Saturday if it killed us. We caravaned our way over and ambushed the place. We had only called them 30 minutes prior to arriving (It took some doing to even figure out what the names were, we only knew them by location.) Needless to say, it took several hours to even start to be served. Even though we were there FOREVER! we were having a good time, all of us in one room with kids and spouses.
Here's something peculiar. The whole time I lived over there, there were people who had left before us and we had never had the opportunity to meet. In San Antonio we all kind of came together. A lot of "oh so YOU'RE ...so and so!" Well, there's the case of Michelle Horn. A name that was always familiar while in high school and even today because even though I didn't know her, I thought I had and just didn't know how since we shared the same friends but at different times. I'd hear my friends say things about Michelle and knew she had moved before I got there, but it was incredibly familiar. It's hard to put this in words. It was always surreal.
I was looking at the piles of photo albums that people threw onto the hotel bed for us to just wander through and reminisce...well, one had pictures of where I lived prior to Izmir -- Scott AFB, Illinois. ...and there was my old neighborhood...and the school gym uniform the girl was wearing was new at the time I lived there...and that girl is someone I knew!!...and her and her and oh my god, that's Kenny Ogilvey, the Scott Baio look-a-like!!! Whose album is this!??! Turns out Michelle lived at Scott at the same time I did. I did know her! I knew of her at least! ....it gets better, she lived in the house that was directly behind mine. The house I lived in for about 6 years. She had lived there for 2 years during 7th and 8th grade. Our school didn't have yearbooks for junior high, so I don't have pictures of the entire class, just our homerooms.
Needless to say, I was floored.
It was a wonderful weekend and we'll be trying to get together annually from now on.
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5 comments:
That's a wonderful story, I always get such a nice view of you in this element...your element...
HERE.
I love the way you tell tales.
Love ya girl!!!
I was in turkey 1979,80,81 during my 5,6,7 grades and your story gave me total recall. Thank you lots. I recall jumping on the back of horse carraiges and getting whipped, I recall wall walking through the back of apartments having the caretakers throw rocks at me, I recall blowdarts and shooting the 100 cats running round, I recall piss alley - close to the Kordon hotel. I loved the elephants at the zoo, and loved the typhoid rings carried on the venders head ( oopps dropped it in the horse poop). I recall the military takeover, the power going out only to get stuck in the elevator ( again and again and again). I cant forget the armed guards on the school bus, and the stink of the bay going to the park.
I saw a banner bomb on a mosque, terrorist throw a bottle bomb at a car, a lady jump from a 4th story balcony, a kid hit by a bus - picked up and put in the trunk of a car, the mailroom exploded, and the pan am building lobby explode before my eyes. I love Turkey and the many adventures I will never forget.
Dean Vroman
Roberta, I loved your missive. You're dead on. Tell me if this isn't even more coincidence...I was also at Scott AFB for junior high school before getting to Izmir. Before I went to Scott AFB, Ron Miles was in my class at Izmir Elementary. I didn't realize he went to Mascoutah Junior High after that in Illinois since the school was so big. I only found out that we went to the same school after he and his family ended up appearing once again at Izmir right after I did! We ended up graduating high school together.
Stealing beer mugs and hood ornaments, and getting wasted from club to club. Charming. I was there from 1971-1974. It was a happy time, and I'm sure formative in its way, but not something that is a touchstone for my whole life, as it seems to be for so many others. I went to a reunion in 2000, and none of my old buddies were there. I guess it's not much of a momentous touchstone for them, either!
It was a really fun time, as I recall.
I know this is a really old post, but what year did you graduate? I was at IHS from '89-'91.
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