My wife and I are at my high school’s 45th class reunion. Yes, it has been 45 years since I graduated from high school in 1969. I am now a nearly bald, fat (oops, weight-challenged), happy grandfather. Back then, I was a confused 17 year old who probably should have waited a year or two to go to college. That was not an option. That was not how it was done back then. If you took a year off, it meant you would lose your draft deferment and be sent to Viet Nam. As it turned out, I was drafted two years later anyway, but that is another story.
Within two and 1/2 months of my graduation, the now-legendary Woodstock festival would take place. Only two years before, in 1967, over 100,000 people converged on San Francisco in what became known as the “Summer of Love.” The Battle of Khe Sanh took place over several months in 1968. That year, 1968, was a terrible year. During the time of the Battle of Khe Sanh in Viet Nam, Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in the USA. Later that year, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in the USA. Also in 1968, the My Lai massacre took place. For those of us whose senior year was 1968-1969, the USA and the world were confusing places. Our American culture was over-heating, straining at the seams, and showing strong signs of cracking. I was not yet a citizen, and was still to be a citizen when I was drafted. Yes, one could be drafted without even being a citizen. One of the great ironies of the USA is that it would have been possible for me to have been killed for the USA while having never been granted citizenship.
It was a confusing time and I was a confused teenager, as I said earlier. But it is 45 years later, and how times have changed. This is the first high school reunion that I have attended. About a third of us are retired. Thankfully not one person was interested in politics. No one was discussing events of great import. We were much more interested in talking about our grandchildren, our retirement (or upcoming retirement), etc. We reminisced some about those who have already left us in this life. Mostly we enjoyed ourselves with anecdotes about jokes played, frustrating teachers, exemplary teachers, etc. We remembered high school sports. Mainly, we just remembered.
There is something to be said for memories, for grandchildren, for peace, for relaxation. There is something to be said for old friendships, for comradeship, for remembrance, and for joy. It has been a good weekend.
Padre Ernesto, like you I have not attended any of my class reunions (’68, Jesuit High School, Sheveport, LA). I do plan on attending out 50th in 2018 (I graduated a year earlier than you). The high school is now co-ed as the girl’s counterpart, St. Vincent’s, folded. And the name is now Loyola Prep. And the faculty are virtually all non-clerics (shortage of priests, I suppose, when I was there the largest majority were Jesuits priests or scholastics).
I almost got drafted in 1969. I was reclassified “1A” from “2S” after failing a course (again like you, I was not ready for college at 18 in spite of having received an excellent education in high school) which dropped me below full-time status. But they never called me in spite of coming in 45/365 on the draft lottery. And you are right–a green card was good enough for the draft.
I am curious… Where did you attend high school? Where you wounded in the war? Did your military service affect your decision to leave Roman Catholicism?
I attended high school in Mansfield, Ohio. I was fortunate in that I was not sent to Viet Nam immediately after advanced training as many were. By the following year, the peace accords were reaching agreement and implementation, so …
I had left Roman Catholicism around my junior year in high school. I did not leave it in anger. I simply slowly drifted out and started getting into the wacky world of vaguely Eastern religions, along with vaguely pacifist leanings, along with college demonstrations, along with watching “Rowan’s & Martin’s Laugh-In, along with some drug experimentation, etc.
So your family wound up in Ohio? We wound up in Shreveport, Louisiana, one of about 3 Cuban families in the entire city.
In a similar manner, I left Roman Catholicism not because I suddenly agreed with Luther or Calvin but because I lost interest in organized religion. And yes, I too, dabbled a bit in eastern mysticism and drugs.
Never got into anti-war demonstrations, though. Such activities were quickly extinguished in red neck country.