Saturday, August 12, 2017

40 years...

My family moved to Tell City, Indiana when I was 8 years old.  We lived there for 7 years.  I had a lot of great friends I grew up with from 3rd grade on and it was tough to leave that experience behind when we moved to North Carolina right after my freshman year of high school.  I have since caught up with a lot of them on Facebook.  Since they graduated, a core group has been getting together every August - called the Last Man's Club.  This year they are celebrating their annual LMC gathering as well as their 40th high school reunion.  A few of them tried to convince me to attend but I decided not to go because it would be too much of a time warp for me.  Keep in mind - the last time I saw these guys we were all 16 years old and I knew most of them since 3rd grade...and they are all so old now!  Moving away when we did really sucked because I missed out on all the shared experience of growing old together with a group of childhood friends.  Since I blew off the reunion, I figured the least I could do is send them all a BE LIKE CHUPA mug.  Cheers!  89,97,75,0,B        
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15 comments:

Unknown said...

My high school class has had 52 reunions. I haven't attended any of them.
Maybe we're missing out on something, John?

August 12, 2017 at 4:44 PM
John Wells said...

Had I actually graduated with this class, I would be more inclined to attend.

August 12, 2017 at 4:50 PM
96Trees said...

I went to my 10th year high school aniverary. Too many of them became boring insurance salesman. Made me sad.

August 12, 2017 at 6:00 PM
Ronald Mahan said...

I believe your living in the great Chihuhuan Desert is helping you keep lean and fit - compared to your former classmates. Or maybe - the summer heat just melts the pounds off?

August 12, 2017 at 6:19 PM
John Wells said...

I don't think desert life had anything to do with it. I have never been predisposed to obesity. Maybe it is good my family moved away from Indiana...

August 12, 2017 at 6:33 PM
Margery Billd said...

Omg, what a good looking group of men. :-) I have been doing my DNA and have a lot of relatives in Indianna (also ones I do not know in North Carolina), and in Ohio. Today I just said to myself, poor Margery, like I was someone else. I went to 23 schools before I finished high school and I cried a lot leaving friends (military transfers). A rolling stone gathers no moss but it gets a good shine. I have lived a thousand lives you will never know.

August 12, 2017 at 6:54 PM
Margery Billd said...

I am the 3rd great niece of Jefferson Davis (born in KY) whose brother moved to southern IN and bought a big farm and my Davis cousin runs it. And one of my other grandfathers was born in IN (I got some crazy idea he was Jewish heritage) but just learned from his sisters family that he was Irish, English (which I am).

August 12, 2017 at 6:59 PM
Unknown said...

Jim said his wife's entire class of 1950 just celebrated a get together. All of them were still alive and able to enjoy theeir

August 12, 2017 at 7:20 PM
Unknown said...

A friend of mine was born and raised in northern Michigan and will turn 90 soon. He said there were 9 people in his high school class. When I was in high school we lived in a suburb of Detroit. There were almost 800 of us in my graduating class.

August 12, 2017 at 8:05 PM
Ronald Mahan said...

I remember there were only 26 graduates in my Tomball, Texas High School class of 1954. Life Magazine once did an article on my hometown and called it "Oil Town U.S.A." Probably because we had lots of producing wells inside the city limits. The oil companies had so much excess natural gas - they gave Tomball free natural gas just to get rid of it. And minimize the flaring of natural gas.
There were only about a thousand people inside the city limits - but a similar number of good German farmers & ranchers were located outside city limits. This included the Klien & Lemm families who were my German ancestors. But I also had ancestors from Switzerland & Ireland. I never knew much about my ancestors until I got married to my wife Pat Mahan - who is also a genealogist - and she researched my family tree!

August 12, 2017 at 9:21 PM
rj said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
August 12, 2017 at 10:19 PM
rj said...

You might have scared them off with the beard and far west Texas stories. But you could have shown them the videos of you hand building the greenhouse and flying in the sky. Plus I am sure none of them have been on "Texas Country Reporter" with Bob Phillips:

"John Wells can't really remember when he decided to move out to the middle of nowhere," says Bob Phillips of Texas Country Reporter. The TV clip includes an early tour of John's three room house and his ever popular "West is the Best" rap.

Link to Youtube of John's Early TV Exposure

August 12, 2017 at 10:28 PM
Larry G said...

Never had much interest in HS reunions.. too much drama ... it's like putting gossip on steroids! Unhealthy!

August 13, 2017 at 5:27 AM
leilani said...

Hey, I think those guys look just fine, especially considering Tell City has one of the few remaining Frostops in the country.(The chain went out of business several decades ago but there are about 12 or so that are still hanging on.)

There was (& still is) a remnant Frostop in one of my many hometowns when I was growing up & it's a good thing I left. I'd be 2X John's classmates' size if I were still slurping down those root beer floats every chance I got in the summer.

August 13, 2017 at 7:38 AM
Off Grid Research said...

"they are all so old now!"
Getting old beats the alternative!

August 13, 2017 at 7:57 AM

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