50th Year Reunion

                             

                   JUNE 1964 -- JUNE 2014

                                                                                                   

 

50th FHS Class of 1964 Reunion

 

Pictures will be posted as soon as they are sent to us.

Well, it's not a picture but a good life story from Mike Hart. Thanks Mike.

Our 50th Reunion was a benchmark event for me. Besides seeing classmates in a
five year increment there were classmates after a fifty year interval!

My English teacher, Miss Campbell, attended and I had the pleasure of meeting
her again. She didn't remember me but she was a significant influence. Lets just
say I was a classroom cut up and she applied some rough justice and aligned my
priorities to a better path. She gave me confidence in writing to go along with
my passion for reading.

Of course during my four years at Fairborn High there were several teachers who
thought I was well beyond any help and hope. But their message was registered.

Many good teachers at Fairborn High and they instilled a drive and legacy for us
to go forward and meet headlong the societal paradigm shift that occurred post
1964.

As an average background guy with unremarkable talents I had the knowledge and
lessons I took with me from Fairborn High. A legacy.

Parallel to my professional (paying) career I became a writer and an editor.
Through the circuitous forks taken in the road of life, this led to the
political process and becoming a lobbyist for a Political Action Committee.
Lobbying on Capitol Hill to legislators and one time going to the White House to
meet with then President Jimmy Carter. No Oval Office meeting but we did convene
in the White House East Room. The White House is full of the ghosts of history.

My politics being right wing and pushing against the majority left tide of the
era, I left the position. Getting quickly burnt out with politicians and jaded
with the political process. I returned to the sanity of my regular career,
family and raising my children.

Like most of us I did many diverse things just for grins. Before there was a
'bucket' for the lists!

My greatest accomplishment in life is my children loving me to death and saying
I am the best dad in the world. Everything else pales.

Now it is grandpa stories to my grandchildren about growing up in Fairborn. The
everlasting stream.
 


Another message that sure applies to our class.

                                         T'was the night before the reunion:

                                 

                          It was my first class reunion and all through the house,

                        I checked in each mirror and begged my poor spouse

                            To say I looked great, that my chin wasn't double,

                    And he lied through his false teeth just to stay out of trouble.

 

                    Said that 'neath my thick glasses, my eyes hadn't changed,

                       And I had the same figure, It was just a mite rearranged.

                        He said my skin was still silky, alhough looser in drapes,

                          Not so much like smooth satin, but more like silk crepe.

 

                               I swallowed his words--hook, sinker and line

                                  And entered the banquett feeling just fine.

                               Somehow I had expected my classmates to stay

                                  As young as they were on that long-ago day.

 

                         We hugged big ole' hugs, but like me, through the years,

                           They'd added gray to their hair or pounds to their rears.

                    But as we shared a few memories and retold some class jokes,

                  We were eighteen in spirt, thought we looked like we were our folks.

 

                     We turned up hearing aids volumes and dimmed down the lights,

                           Rolled back the years, and we were young for the night!