The high school reunion

As I write this, we’re in the throes of planning our high school reunion. Broad Run High School Class of 1988 will be celebrating our 20th reunion in September.

    Fantastic — I’m 18 pounds down, with about 30 left to go. We actually hired a company to help plan our reunion, and it’s been a lot less stressful than the 10- or 15-year one was.

    Back then, we had a tremendous list of folks to track down (265 to be exact). We split the list up four ways, and I think I had last names beginning G through L. That was eventful, to say the least.

    I got in touch with a few people, called a lot of wrong numbers, and had at least one person say, “Not interested! I hated high school when I was there, and I definitely don’t want to go back!”

    Alrighty then. Have a nice day, and please drive through.

Now, all those endless hours and visits to Loudoun County have dwindled with the use of this reunion planning company, and we’re especially grateful for that considering gas is now approaching $3.50 a gallon.

We have a Web site set up strictly for our class reunion, and people can go online and create a profile, even adding pictures. The picture part can be difficult to decide on — definitely put a picture of your child(ren). The picture I’d like to post of myself is from about three years ago, so that’s not fair.

And I think the one photo we have of our family is from four years ago, being that it’s usually me or my husband behind the camera.

Honestly, it’s not the arms that continue waving after I’m done waving that bother me. We sincerely don’t have any updated photos of our family! Mission for this weekend — figure out how to use that darned auto button on the camera!

There was a short-lived reality show on TV Land recently called “High School Reunion.” Yes, it sucked me in, and I was compelled to tape every last episode of it. It may have been eight or 10 episodes in all, and Lord knows it was probably scripted quite a bit. But it still sucked me in, like a Lifetime “Moment of Truth” movie.

This show brought a variety of class members from a Texas town’s Class of ‘87 to a resort in Hawaii. They were to live together for 10 days. There were labels for each alumnus — “Geek,” “Pipsqueak,” “Popular Girl,” “Outcast,” “Jock,” “Drama Queen,” — you get the picture.

The transformation some of these folks made since high school was incredible.

There were relationships formed that never would have formed 20 years earlier.
The “Geek” finally had his day with the “Bully.” As two grown men, they discussed the hell that one had put the other through. In the end, they were close friends. Time heals all wounds, I suppose.

If you’ve ever seen “Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion,” you know the comical stress these gals are put under when they find out about their 10-year reunion.

As they’re filling out their profiles, they realize that they’re just not as successful as they once thought. They come up with a bright idea to lie and tell their fellow classmates that they invented Post-It Notes. Long story short, they find in the end it’s best to be who you have grown into and not fabricate a false identity to impress.

Keep in mind, it’s been 20 years since a lot of us have seen each other (some, only five or 10). The last time some of us saw each other, we had Metallica T-shirts and mullets. Others of us had Big BIG BIG hair and shoulder pads that rivaled the varsity football team’s.

The truth? To quote our class president, Susan (Bishop) Fredell on our reunion Web site, “In 1988, 265 very hopeful, somewhat ambitious and spectacularly good-looking young women and men were graduated from Broad Run High School in rural Ashburn. It’s 2008 —Ashburn is anything but rural, but those graduates are still confident, still determined and still stunningly attractive.

And they’re gathering to celebrate 20 years of the things that have changed and the things that have stayed the same.”

Thank you, Susan, it couldn’t have been better stated.

Hope A. Smith is an independent columnist and resident of Orange County. Her column appears on Friday. E-mail