Okay, the first thing I want to know is, how the heck did I ever get my hair so straight? I must have worked on it for hours and hours with the ol' iron, ironing board, and soda can rollers.

Last night was my high school reunion, and I couldn't go. I really, really wanted to, especially because I was going to spend some extra time with two of my closest high school friends, one of whom I haven't seen in decades. But John had surgery last week, and my place was most definitely with him.

I know a lot of people never go to their high school reunions. The woman organizing ours, the amazing Gwen Crews, told me some people--many of them seemingly happy and popular back in the day--actually get angry when she tries to track them down. I guess that's really a case of our "insides looking at their outsides," as I discussed a few blog posts ago. There's such pain in adolescence, and it's not always visible. That's one reason why I love writing about teenaged characters. Soooo much going on inside those heads and bodies.

What was I like in high school? In my memory, I was two different people. In school, I was extremely quiet and anxious because I was agoraphobic. I had panic attacks in the classroom, and longed for the bell to reach marking the end of each class so I could walk into the hallway and breathe. I had, what I now recognize as, selective mutism. I never volunteered an answer in a class--not even in college. Not until graduate school, when I went through a radical, self-directed transformation. Outside of school, I loved partying (despite being a teetotaler), dating, and hanging out with my friends. Outside of school, I was comfortable in my own skin. 

But actually, I didn't set out to write this post about me. I set out to write about my high school, Plainfield High School in Plainfield, NJ. Even though my tenure there was difficult, I loved my school because it was incredibly diverse. In the midst of the civil rights era, it was half white, half black, and embodied a fairly phenomenal mixture of religions. It was a microcosm of the world that shaped me into the person I am and that no doubt led me to be a social worker, and later a writer. I still have a paper from an English class in which my teacher wrote in the margin "I think you should be a writter (sic)!"  My parents wanted to take me out of PHS and send me to a Catholic girls' school. Despite my discomfort in school, I said "no way." I had no desire for homogeneity.

PHS was not without problems, however. As a matter of fact, the problems were huge. My mother graduated from PHS in 1933, and parts of the school--the second oldest in NJ--were condemned even at that time. I recall holes in the walls in which my friends and I could hide notes to one another. On a more profound level, we were "tracked" into our classes according to culturally biased IQ tests, which resulted in a racial divide that continues today in so many schools and in our society as a whole. There was unrest, distrust, and anger. But there was also tolerance, understanding and compassion that led to friendships that crossed the color and religious divides--and that is so in evidence at the joyful reunions. I learned so much more at PHS than what was taught in the classrooms.  

I'm not the only writer who came out of my class at PHS. Gale Goldberg wrote about bamboo. Gloria Bussell Koster writes children's books. Our most famous class member is probably Ken Druse, who's a household name in garden writing. I bet there are others, and I hope they'll let me know who they are so I can include them.

Thanks for allowing me the time to revisit my high school in my own little private reunion here. Hopefully, I'll make the next one in person.