Right back where we left off

Ten years ago, when I drove away from Dover High School as a new graduate, I had no desire to return.

Two years later, facing college and the rest of my life, I was pining for that high school drama.

And earlier this year, as I realized that a decade had elapsed since graduation, I recoiled in faux horror as I realized that I was approaching another of life’s milestones and therefore officially becoming older. But in reality, I was glad to return to Delaware last weekend to reunite with my high school classmates.

Time has been kind to us all. Everyone seemed to be in good health and good spirits, eager to reconnect.

And as one of my classmates astutely pointed out, it seemed like people picked up right where they had left off with everyone rejoining their usual groups of friends after exchanging a few formal hellos with everyone else.

It was a stark contrast from my dad’s 45th high school reunion last month in South Carolina. Yet that familiar platitude — “the more things change,” the more they stay the same — seemed to hold true for both occasions.

No matter the era, I think we all hope for a bright future, success, equity in opportunity and personal satisfaction as universal aspirations. And thanks to Facebook and e-mail, for many of us, our journeys have been a shared experience, one wall post and status update at a time.

Some of those status updates came directly from the scene of the reunion, via ubiquitous fancy phones used to snap and post pictures.

As ’90s-era music wafted under the pavilion in the steamy air, over roast beef, pasta and potatoes, my classmates and I eagerly shared our best high school memories and openly pined over those who were absent. Ironically, nearly all of the banquet center staff was older than we were, a fact that thoroughly amused me.

And thanks to the hard work and planning of a few classmates, we enjoyed a Dover High School blue and white cake and took home a few similarly colored souvenirs from the occasion.

I took home something even better, though — an appreciation for the people who drift — or occasionally are placed — into your life.

As I returned back to Culpeper, my memories could not help but drift to classmate John Oldigs. While we weren’t close friends, we spent plenty of time together honing our musical mastery.

With him on the stage and me usually behind the scenes in the orchestra pit or at the lighting console, together we attempted to make art imitate life.

But memories are now all we have. In 2004, a drunk driver on Interstate 66 crashed into the car he was in, ending his life, along with the lives of his cousin and aunt as they were travelling to a family reunion here in Culpeper.

Time breeds good and bad memories. But thankfully this past weekend, the good memories and good times eclipsed the bad.

Ten years after graduation, the most important lesson I’ve learned is not to take anyone for granted. It’s a hard lesson that no textbook can ever convey.

To see a little bit of the Dover High School class of 1999, go to doverhigh1999.myevent.com.