“Yesterday’s gone and we can’t get it back.” Gus McCrae (Robert Duvall) in Lonesome Dove

I graduated high school in 1964. And, for reasons solely within my control, though I wouldn’t have admitted it back then, I also graduated high school in 1965. I have been to three high school reunions; my 10th, my 25th and, this past weekend, my 50th.

My singular inability to extricate myself from the structured life-sucking tentacles of my high school octopus on time and under budget surprises me to this day. High School for me was not a time of large memories. This is not to say that there were not pleasant times. During those high school years, my best moments, aside from Mr. Marty’s guided tour of Europe in the summer of 1963, were outside the system. I was not a joiner. I belonged to no clubs to speak of. In hindsight, there were many I could have easily joined. As an aging adult, I am actively engaged in my community, albeit often exhibiting some distance, some remoteness. But in high school I was not a sign-me-up-right-now kind of guy. I was a class rep on my 1964 Grad Committee. I’ve mentioned how well that went.

I did spend some time in the local military Reserves, the Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry. While my later brief sojourn in the Canadian Armed Forces (a 5-month getaway to Kingston where my ability to appreciate most things military was found wanting) was life-changing, the Princess Pats was a convivial and relatively gentle experience. Though I often cavalierly reference the ability to legally drink underage whilst engaged in defending Nanaimo and its unincorporated areas from space invaders as my prime motive in signing up, I truly enjoyed pretty much every moment in the Reserves, with the minor exception of the time a tank ran over my glasses.

So, my temperament, if that’s the right word, has always been somewhat detached. Nevertheless, I think I had a reasonably average time as a teenager growing up in Nanaimo, B.C. This is not to ignore how difficult adolescence can be. I have a few vivid memories of bullying (both on the receiving and giving end), of obnoxious clique behaviour that seemed to me to dominate the culture, of my own occasionally questionable behaviour to others (such as asking two young women to Grad and, of course, not taking one.)  I have yet to work up an apology. Likely it is my issue more than hers.

Some of my best and most challenging social experiences, cubs, scouts, dating and the like, were within my local church. As a young Mormon (I should note I fell away from organized and unorganized religion by age 17) I had a social network separate from, and only occasionally wedded to, high school.

At my 50th reunion this weekend, neither of those two worlds collided. In fact, the most enjoyment I found was in a few conversations that tweaked or resuscitated old and not especially cataclysmic memory. The organizers did a bang-up job and I was glad to be able to attend what I imagine will be my final reunion. I wish I had found the opportunity, or taken them, to have a few more heartfelt discussions with old acquaintances.

Later on in the evening as I read through the names of those listed “In Memoriam”, I was overcome by an absolute loss of youth, of possibility, which I had not quite up to then felt. At the same time, totally inappropriately, I wondered about the one name that had been crossed off the list in thick black ink. Was it a simple mistake; a resurrection? But some of the other names were a shock. They spoke silently, yet so loudly, of missed opportunities to say hello and ask how life had fared.

I withdrew, dragging my morose and brooding self from the gala affair. This was not unlike skipping school, a favorite pastime of mine once upon a time. Then, the act of skipping school always took me towards the light of an elusive but much sought after freedom. Reunions offer a less intense light, flickering and fading.

Yesterday, if I had any doubt, was truly, irrevocably gone and it was time to return to the present.