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Last updated 7/16/2001 - 9:42
Laurie Neff Rollins
The physical reuniting was such a wonderful experience but the location didn't matter; it was the people. I came to the conclusion that we are and were a phenomenal group of people. I discovered that I like the adult versions as much as I liked the kid and teen-age versions. I count myself fortunate that Inez is 3 miles from me, Danny F is about 15 miles from me and Adolph is only a 1 hour plane ride away. We will make every effort to keep the momentum going that the reunion started.
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David Calvert - July 14, 2001
Sitting here in New York and still basking in the afterglow of our glorious weekend. It is like we have all restored a piece of our own pasts, a part that was sort of slipping away, and is now more present and real. My seventh and ninth-grade daughters have gotten a kick out of the way I flipped out over this thing during the past month. They wonder if they will have an event like this 25 or 30 years down the road with their current classmates!! They should be so lucky.
It took guts for everyone to show up -- spending the money, making the commitment, adjusting the schedules, sucking in the guts, striding down the aisle. The good news -- and I guess this should not be surprising -- is we are accepted and appreciated as we are and for the good will
that we bring to the table, and the three decades apart and the distinctly different paths taken turn out to be of no great consequence.
In the end we seek community and friendship, and we had it then and we still do. We got it back!!
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Our JHS Reunion
by Amelia Rosner
They came from all over.
PS 198, PS 6, PS 183...
Girls and boys turned women and men. Wives, husbands, lovers, mothers, fathers, grandparents.
Healers, lawyers, businessfolk, scientists, bankers, teachers, artists, writers, musicians. Advocates for the elderly, the homeless and the poor.
Grown-ups on the outside. But only on the outside.
Something drew us back to the streets of our youth. To a set of years that rocked the world. To be with the only people who know why we are who we've become.
Some of you have heard me say this. But hell, I repeat myself often enough.
When they go to the highlights of my life, this reunion will be on the videotape. You get a handful of highlights if you’re very lucky. And I am very lucky.
What I’ll remember best is the feeling that we couldn’t be apart for very long. So we sat in the sun and we talked and we laughed and we cried and we went for meals and we walked and we bowled and we danced and we walked some more and cried some more and we went from place to place to place together. Never wanting it to end.
The way we felt in 1966, 1967 and 1968.
Jose said at the end of each day: Could that have been more perfect?
Yes. If we had been with our classmates who were too far away to attend.
Yes. If we had been with our classmates who will forever be too far away.
But no. It could not have been more perfect in our
imperfect world.
Thank you, everyone.
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Thoughts on seeing my grade school classmates
by Chester Gittleman
When I got on "The List" I printed out all the e-mails and brought them home to my wife and daughter. As I read the names, especially those from the elementary school years -- Tommy Kleinman, Laurie Neff, Debbie Shelton, David Calvert, Jose
Cintron, Inez Nottingham, Atlee Moore -- I began crying. And just before the reunion, I was scared, felt like I was going to meet my maker, felt like I had a year before, when I was going into surgery; and I wondered why. I came to this conclusion:
I was seeing the people who knew me before I had years to build up layers of defenses against childhood insecurities; before adult defenses were formed like educational accomplishments; money and material possessions; authority over others at work; and whatever else you use to cover up your basic insecurities.
We knew each other when our insecurities were much more out in the open. We had seen each other cry, when something bad had happened in school and we knew trouble awaited us at home when our parents found out. Scared when bigger, tougher kids picked on us at school. Upset when other kids rejected us.
While we still carry these insecurities around, today they're much better hidden. But these people knew me when those feelings were less well hidden, and they remember me in a way that people who know me today as an adult at work and socially will never know me. Only we clearly remember each other before we had a
chance to build up those defenses against basic childhood insecurities. And that is why those feelings about seeing them are so strong, and why it is such a special reunion.
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