ND3 bonds with the Bonds-Wilson High School class of 1964

When it comes to celebrating, the alumni of Bonds-Wilson High School know how to have a good time.

I spent last weekend bonding with the class of 1964 in Charleston, S.C., at its 45-year class reunion. I hope that I’ll still have as much joy for life and love for each other as they do nearly half a century after graduation.

It wasn’t my reunion — it hasn’t been nearly half a century since I left high school, thank-you-very-much. And invited by my dad, I must admit I had some reservations about spending the weekend with lots of old people that I’d never met.

A quarter-century career in the military prevented my dad from attending previous reunions. But now with a new career and more time off, the opportunity finally arose. It was a monumental trip for my father and the first time he’d seen some of his classmates in decades. Seeing my dad’s genuine joy and excitement brightened my weekend too.

In 1964, Jim Crow had not yet been expelled from many southern public school systems and neither had the rod nor the Bible. As a former military brat, the endless tales of second-class treatment by the school board, physical discipline being inflicted on the students and class prayers and freely flowing spiritual advice sounded overwhelmingly like well-spun fiction from a bygone era.

But thankfully, the truth is the faculty had succeeded in instilling in the class the desire to remember and have pride in your background, to have hope for your future and to develop the motivation to do the best with your life, no matter where you find yourself in the journey.

Unfortunately in this era, compulsory testing, mandated political correctness and apathy seem to have instilled in students, teachers and parents a fear and loathing of learning or doing anything difficult, or out of the box, especially when it comes to those non-academic life lessons that are so critical.

As one class member put it, she never knew until after the fact that she and many of her classmates were from the wrong side of the tracks. On another occasion, another classmate recalled how the band director (who wore many different hats at the school) chased down a disobedient student and tackled him in the dirt behind the school’s stadium to straighten him out. Apparently, there were no further discipline issues at school that day.

Regrettably, the Bonds-Wilson building is gone, a victim of the changing times and some say lingering prejudices over the area’s formerly tumultuous and separate but unequal educational modus operandi. The Bonds-Wilson name too is apparently in jeopardy — according to the members of the class, who reside in Charleston, years after the building was removed, the historic name hasn’t been bestowed upon anything else.

As I prepare to head off to my own class reunion in Delaware next month, I want to thank my father for the invite and being a part of a good weekend. The Bonds-Wilson class of 1964 has showed me that contrary to my deeply seated belief, perhaps it really is not all downhill after age 18.