Hello Everyone,

Hopefully everyone is finally enjoying the beautiful spring weather. It’s been quite an eventful winter and wintery spring. Makes me very thankful for some warmth and sunshine!

Well, this summer I get to go back to my hometown (Rock Rapids, Iowa) for the Heritage Days Celebration and also for my 45th class reunion. Yikes!! Our class has been having class reunions every 5 years since we graduated.

Along with the gray hairs, few extra pounds and a boatload of other changes, there are some that I’ve noticed since the very first reunion. Our class graduated from Central Lyon in 1974 and we had one of the largest classes.

At the first class reunion, a mere five years after we graduated, some of us were already married, many were not. A few of our classmates had already started a family. Many had not. But the thing that stood out at this one was everybody just wanted to see each other, visit and catch up and enjoy each other’s company.

Then at the ten year class reunion the atmosphere changed a bit. Everybody had started on the path to their chosen careers, added to or started their families and many had relocated to other parts of the country. Again, played catch up and had a great time.

I think for me I saw the biggest change at the fifteen year class reunion. It wasn’t as “friendly.” It seemed like there were a lot of the people trying to impress the masses. Kind of reminded me of that old movie, Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion where they told the elaborate story that they had invented post-it notes. I even joked with my good friend Jeri that we should pull that stunt with some of the more bragadocious classmates and see if they caught it. We didn’t, however it was really tempting. Lol!

Then came the twentieth! That seemed to be the year where we all were most interested in sharing pictures of our children and bragging on them and it was a fun and relaxing reunion. The reunions that came after this one were more of the same and just fun and enjoyable! No more pretentiousness, just downright great people enjoying each other’s company.

And now with this our 45th coming up I think it will be a celebration of joy and sadness. Joy because now we can all share wonderful stories about our children and grandchildren. And sadness because we’ve lost some classmates and also because a lot of us have had other losses in our lives. Some have lost spouses, a lot have lost parents and some have lost children or grandchildren.

In thinking about attending this class reunion though, I can’t help but feel deeply blessed. Through all of life’s struggles, I am blessed to still find joy in every day and that is my wish for you as well.