High School Never Ends

There is a song out by a band called Bowling For Soup called High School Never Ends. If I was more tech savvy, I would offer you a link to listen. But I haven't quite got the skills for that just yet so you'll just have to visit iTunes or You Tube for yourself. Regardless, the basic gist of it is that we spend 4 years in social hell just to discover that the real world is the exact same social hell. As negative as that sounds, its a pretty good song: upbeat and funny and just generally fun to listen to.

Friday night, I had dinner with a group of folks I knew from my high school. A few I had known since grade school. We were a very eclectic group in many ways. We ranged in ages from 15 to mid 40s (a former teacher and her son joined us) and we could have been an ad for the United Colors of Benetton with all the ethnicities we represented. Some had been the nerds, some had been popular. Some had been social butterflies and some had been the quiet kids who hardly spoke. But here we were, 13 years after our high school graduation, having dinner and chatting like not a day had passed.

The conversations were more grown up now. Not so much who kissed who and who was "talking" to whom. Instead, it was who was working/living where, who had bought a house, and who was expecting. But the overall dynamic was the same. And it was great to see everyone and catch up on everyone's lives.

We attended an inner city public high school. We went through metal detectors and had our bags searched daily. Local law enforcement and EMTs made appearances a couple times a week due to a fight or gun/knife brought to school. And as I looked around that table, I could not help but be proud that every last person at that table (with the exception of the 15 year old of course) had a college degree. Some had multiple degrees! Despite all the social hell we went through, we managed to rise above, educate ourselves, and do something with our lives.

The social hell spoken about in the song and the social hell we experienced are very different. Don't get me wrong... we, too, had the popular kids and the yearbook/newspaper nerds (I was one of them) and the athletes just like everywhere else. But there were much more dangerous things we had to worry about as well. So I guess I think the song is funny because, to me, it's about a high school that only exists in the movies.

What was your high school like? Do you stay in touch with anyone? Did you attend any reunions? If so, what were they like?