Feel the Magic, Indeed

This past weekend marked the 45th Reitz class of 1967 Reunion. Participation  surprised me at the pregame dinner, the game itself, and the school tour as warm-up events.

Themed "Feel the Magic", the dinner event itself certainly felt that way for the nearly 180 people in attendance. 

All the planning of the last 18 months since the April Spring Fling paid off and everything went off without major incident. Were there things that we could have done better? Of course. That is just the nature of large gatherings. The unexpected is the norm. But we are observant and humbly learn from our mistakes as we strive to improve the gatherings that have become our responsibility. I know I've been Monday morning quarterbacking since Sunday morning. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. Onward and upward! We're going to do the class photo differently next time, for sure.

Let's not forget our classmates who are scattered far and wide and for whom the possibility of attendance is slim to none for whatever reason. That is why we have tried to get all the photos up on Facebook and the website as soon as possible so that they might be able to share in the experience, even if only vicariously through photos. They can only imagine the out-flowing of friendship and fond memories that were shared and renewed. We just received a note from Angela Hempen Long from New York:

Thanks so much for this photo.  Obviously everyone had a ball!!!  I thought of you often over this weekend, and really look forward to seeing many more photos on the website.  And then - WOW - just this morning, on my local radio station, Evansville was at the top of the news....probably old news to you, but to me it was quite a thrill to learn the museum had a rare and very valuable Picasso in its basement.  The commentator said the painting had been stored there for nearly 50 years, so it was there when we were in high school.

Thanks again to you and your husband and all the other people who pulled together the website and the reunions.  For me, and I'm sure for others who cannot make it back, it's a wonderful little touch of home and history.  I love it.  Angela (Hempen) Long

Linda is forwarding the group photos to classmates who did not attend. We urge you all to do so too in the hope that this will change their minds about attending future events.

When we started this current Reunion effort, we never expected it to evolve into the kind of community building that it has become. Reports of local gatherings of all kinds are popping up. Reitz 67 folks far and wide are following the Facebook page and website and even my humble blog. I know from our own experience that Linda is reunited with many of her old school chums in a meaningful way, with daily chit chat and shared meals and the kinds of behavior that characterized the daily contact we used to have with our friends when we were in school. That is the essence of what we are trying to achieve; the ability to think beyond our own blindered busy errand running babysitting grandparent nose to the grindstone lives to open up to old friends and the larger community that is the Reitz class of 1967.

As the events of the weekend started to unfold with the pregame dinner at the west side Hacienda, I found myself sitting back for a moment as a semi-dispassionate observer watching mostly West Terrace people breaking bread together. I truly envied them having gone to school from start to finish together. My education was broken into many segments as my family moved from place to place. The continuity of acquaintance and the sheer length of these enduring friendships is far rarer than many would suppose, even in a smaller city like Evansville. And I realized that I have come to care about what happens to these people who have opened their arms to me as the displaced spouse of one of their own. This feeling was amplified as I watched a whole stadium full of people chanting the Reitz fight song as though they still haunted the halls of the building behind them.

A little before the festivities began at Kokies, I was talking with Don Baggett, the magician, about the group he would be playing to, trying to put everything in context, not knowing whether or not it would affect his selection of illusions etc. - Hey I'm not a magician, so I don't know whether such stuff matters to the act, but it has always been important to me to understand the crowd I'm working so why not. I remember thinking that Don's act was not the only magic that was going to be there at our little event. I couldn't have been more right. The Reitz Class of 67 created and continues to create magic; and it is cumulative, building from last April through this past weekend and beyond.

First, we need to do a little class fund raising since we didn't during the weekend. As Linda has already announced, Gary Malin has once again donated the use of his condo in Orange Beach AL sometime in the spring/early summer of 2013. We will be raffling off this terrific and accessible vacation opportunity again sometime after Christmas and probably start sales in Mid October of this year. Just ask Steve Frohbeiter, last year's winner, if this wasn't a great experience. We'll repost some photos of his time there last year. Naval air museum, private viewing of the Blue Angels up close and personal, sea and sun. Doesn't get any better than this!

So two and a half years from now, sometime in the summer of 2014 we're thinking about a casual event, something I've started to call The Pig in the Park. Needless to say, with a title that catchy can a T Shirt be far behind? Anyway, we're thinking about the Bishea building in Burdette or something like that and one or two roast pigs (and a little something else for you beefeaters and chicken pluckers too). Yes, I know, that's how all this started. Remember how we were going to have a little casual get together in the Howell Shelter house and we outgrew it and had to move the late Cottonwood Center? By the way, did you all realize that we used the same tables this past weekend as we did last year? Kokies bought the tables from the Cottonwood when they folded this year. And like always, low cost means greater attendance. 

No specifics yet, but hey, we've got 2 years to think about it before we have to actually do anything. Lots of time to think about it. Enough time that I think I hear gears turning already. The Magic continues......