I had lunch yesterday with a woman I hadn’t seen since we were in Miss Yamasaki’s 6th grade class at Kahala Elementary School when we graduated in the Spring of 1959. You do the math. It makes my head spin.
This meet-up was the result of my blogging about the recent 60th anniversary of Kahala School, which we both attended from the second through the sixth grades.
After graduating from Kahala, she transferred to Punahou along with a number of others from our class. And they’re gathering this week for their 50th Punahou reunion, with our Kahala connection lurking in the background.
She said she decided to attend that reunion after seeing the old Kahala School class photos that I’ve posted. That led to our lunch, appropriately at the Zippy’s in Kahala.
I’ll be getting together with another of our Kahala classmates next week who is also here for the Punahou gathering.
In an email, she commented:
It is strange to be an adult relating to your childhood self epitomized in the memory of classmates who bear a faint resemblance to someone you once knew.
Yes, it is strange.
The interesting thing is that I have distinct memories of the few boys who were in my rather tight network of playmates and neighbors. Others are faces that I recall, but can’t dredge up specific recollections of.
You would think that there would be little connection possible with a classmate from that far back.
But having just recently enjoyed (endured?) my own high school reunion, it seems to me that there are different but equally interesting and powerful connections to grade school classmates. We shared growing up in a particular place, at that particular time. We can recall landmarks that no longer exist, activities that wouldn’t be allowed by parents today, and a shared cultural context that’s part of a mutual history.
It’s a connection at a different level than with my high school or college friends who I occasionally run into, or have thought of, over the years, where the memories are more specific and personal.
Don’t worry. If these ruminations aren’t relevant to you, they will eventually be. Time marches on, as they say.
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I have one friend from first grade, still a very good friend.. Another from elementary school who I stay in touch with. We were in a small New Mexico town, and many of us went from elementary school through high school together. Definitely have connections with such old classmates. It is great.
And I’m a lot older than you are, Ian.
I went to Waikiki Elementary and I am still best friends with Pinky. We went from Waikiki Elementary, to Kaimuki Intermediate, to Kalani High School and then we both got a D.E. to McKinley High School. McKinley had a Canoe Club that Pinky’s cousin coached at Magic Island. We could have gone to Kaimuki High School, but we wanted to broaden our horizons.