20 years

It was great getting back together with so many of the class of 1988 who returned to Monterey Bay Academy. The weather was sunny and warm all weekend. It's amazing how little seems to change. Even though there have been changes in the buildings, overall the campus looks about what it did 20 years ago. The church still *smells* the same... (Scary...)

Here's the 20 year group photo from yesterday afternoon.


Some people have changed quite a bit. Others haven't changed much at all. Some I recognized immediately. Others, for the life of me, I still can't recall going to school with...

The big highlight for us was the evening party at the Seascape Resort in Aptos. Mingling, dinner, and a program. The dinner was good, and the program entertaining. Augie MC'd the event.

There was a bit of 1988 trivia and for some reason, me, the non-movie watcher (though I must admit I used to watch quite a bit of it during the 80's and 90's), the non-trivia buff, gave the correct answer to some Oscar related question. All I heard (it was quite noisy) was a hint that the movie title was two words beginning with "B" and "N" and the second word was "News." I shouted out, "Broadcast News," which was the correct answer and won a package of Oreo cookies.

Shana hosted the "awards" section of the program in which various awards were given for longest married, most recently married, farthest traveled to reunion, closest living to MBA (there is one person who lives on campus), most four-legged pets, most kids, etc. I'm going to take it as a compliment that by acclamation I was given the "Dorian Grey Award" for "Who looks the most like their senior photo." It came with a large package of Twix.

Lara hosted the part of the program where various current statistics of the class of 1988 were read. Number married, average number of children (1.55 is what I recall hearing), various quotes and tidbits pulled from Facebook and e-mail responses to a questionnaire. I was honored to have something I posted on Facebook as the closing summary of the program. Here's what I wrote:

It's the journey, not the destination. Focusing on the destination gave me stress, migraines, and basing my value as a person on achievements. Achievement is like crack (no, I don't know from personal experience)... A short high followed by a dive into the pits... The need to achieve something even greater to experience the same "high."Learning to enjoy the experience of the journey, learning to take and adapt to things as they come... It's much less stressful, fewer opportunities to worry, and much more contentment.

The evening ended with a slideshow.