My 60th high school reunion was this month down in Victoria where I grew up. It was held at the recently-renovated Club Westerner, a favorite dance hall for generations, where we as teens went for live music and two-stepping almost every weekend throughout the year— and of course, for barbecue and beer for those of legal age. 

     To this day, dances at Club Westerner are among my most most treasured, most enjoyable and most vivid memories of my high school years.This is where B.J. Thomas and the Triumphs (“Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head”), played, where the locally loved and famous “The Moods” appeared regularly , and where Roy Head and the Traits (“Treat Her Right”), a beloved band of Gulf Coast rock n’ roll and R & B, were special favorites. [Incidentally, Roy Head’s son, Sundance Head, was a contestant on Season 6 of American Idol 2007 and a winner on Season 11 of The Voice .] Even Johnny Cash supposedly played here once. That South Texas musical heritage, the unique combination of country dancehall, R&B, rock n’roll, Tejano and Conjunto, with a little Polka thrown in here and there, shapes my own eclectic taste in music today.

     In high school, we used to follow our favorite bands like groupies throughout a surrounding area of regional country dancehalls with weekend schedules: they were all in little country towns — Nordheim, Greenhaus, Lindenau (photo above)— all part of the German Texas heritage that kept, and still keeps, the beer-garden-honkey-tonk, country dance and social club alive, albeit with changing musical tastes. When we were in high school and not yet able to drive to these venues, most of which were about 40 or so miles away, my best friend’s big brother would drive us and act as a (drill sergeant) chaperone. No one was allowed to leave the premises with some new crush, and when the lights came on at the end of the evening, you’d better be there fully visible and ready to go home with the sergeant, or else you’d never get taken to another dance again until you could drive yourself!

     And so it goes without question that over the years almost all of our high-school reunions in Victoria have been held at Club Westerner. Our class, a combination of two Catholic schools, one for boys and one for girls, was small. Ours was the largest ever at just over 100 students. Early on, we had our reunions at a school or church venue, and then as enthusiasm diminished, at various other places. I even informally hosted one (for 15 years) at my Mother’s house in Victoria. And then, gradually, graduates of both schools decided to combine several classes into a reunion covering four years of roughly 500 graduates in total. And that is when we all returned to Club Westerner.

     I have made most of the reunions over the years, missing only one or two big ones. Now that I have returned to Texas and am in San Antonio, friends who live around the country have routinely come through here and we have gone down to Victoria together. While I know a lot of people don’t eagerly anticipate reunions and have some anxiety about them, I would say that I generally have enjoyed the reunions, probably because I enjoyed, truly, most of my classmates when I was in school. Okay, truth be told: yes, I was one of the “in crowd,” a cheerleader, the editor of the school newspaper, a class leader etc., but I always stayed friendly with everybody. I was not bound by the hip to a clique, ate my lunch at different group tables, and tried to represent everyone’s common interest in my various roles and activities. I may have been popular, even if outspoken, but I was not “a mean girl.” 

     A great joy over the many reunions was reconnecting with those guys in the school band, the girls in the pep squad, the leaders in student council, the “nerds” in science clubs and other esoteric organizations. And over the years, I have found that most people remain as who they were then, only probably gotten better as they have aged. It is often said that people don’t change as they age, but only become more like themselves. Reunions give truth to that statement. People who were pompous asses in high school, still are, and those who were really genuine people still are. I know a lot of reunion attendees experience anxiety about how they will appear at their reunions, but I have never found that to be the defining experience. I don’t care about who looks older or younger, who is richer or poorer, who is still living in the same hometown or who has gone abroad to greater things. All I know is that these are the people of my roots, many of whom have a multi-generational connection to my own family, and I am always glad to see everyone of them, even if we have little else in common than our school experience and our South Texas roots.

     Unfortunately, at this stage, I have no really close friends left in my hometown. Of my three closest childhood friends from first grade on, two are now dead and the third has recently been admitted into a memory care facility. I have no parents, relatives, or friends to visit with except at gravesites or in memory when I go to Victoria anymore. So I don’t go down there very often. And to confess,  I did not make this recent high-school reunion either. I intended to, but was in Houston for the week right before, and then had car trouble on the way home that Friday night, and so didn’t get in until so late that I just could not make another trip the next day. And I am sorry because, of course, this could be the last reunion I will ever have the opportunity to attend.

     One of my favorite songs from the ‘70s was “Reunited,” an R&B hit by Peaches and Herb (1978). Though written about a romantic breakup, the lyrical refrain always reminds me of high-school reunions:

Reunited and it feels so good. Reunited cause we understood.

Too me, that is the dominant spirit of a reunion. We feel good because we understand each other in ways that no one else who didn’t grow up with us ever can.