Ken's Second Act

Marking a milestone: attending my 50th-year high school reunion Saturday

I will reach a major milestone on Saturday: attendance at my high school reunion.

I have attended every reunion since 1983, along with a reunion marking the 50^th anniversary of Palm Springs High School in 1988 during which all classes were invited. I do so even though high school was not the time of my life.

l was unhappy because I was a newcomer and outsider, having arrived during the spring semester of 1970 to attend Raymond Cree Junior High School. I had moved from my birthplace in San Bernardino 60 miles to the west to escape the poor air quality, staying at first with my grandparents in Desert Hot Springs. I felt isolated, but I now realize a lot of this was of my own making. I didn’t join clubs or participate in sports, except for a brief stint with the tennis team. I bought only one yearbook – during my sophomore year – and only one student, a senior, signed it. The fact that I didn’t have siblings similar in age – my youngest sister moved out when I was in seventh grade – made adjusting to high school more challenging.

Even worse, my asthma became more severe. My lungs collapsed repeatedly, marked by difficulty breathing and sharp chest pains – beginning during my sophomore year. After repeated operations, I underwent surgery for pneumothorax during my junior year. I walked slumped over from the pain of having tubes inserted in my chest. That discomfort prolonged my stay at Kaiser Hospital in Fontana to 27 days. I recovered at home before returning to school. My father said I almost died. I survived, but asthma and my surgery left permanent physical and psychological scars. I didn’t overcome the disease until my late forties, thanks to modern medicine.

I take no comfort that I have outlived several of my former classmates, many of whom were healthier at the time. The unofficial tally states suicide and homicide each claimed one life. Others died in car crashes or from cancer. A reunion organizer is updating a DVD from 2013 with yearbook photos of former classmates who have died since then, including at least three from within the past year. The DVD from 2013 showed photos of former classmates who died with Dust in the Wind from Kansas playing in the background.

I spent my teens in a world-famous, destination resort community that beckoned a wealthy leisure class with mild winters, golf, tennis, spas and other amenities. Coming of age in Palm Springs was more interesting than, in all due respect to college friend Don Rajewich, living in Tulare in California’s Central Valley. Stores sold postcards of Elvis Presley’s home and tour companies showed visitors where celebrities owned homes. Streets in nearby Rancho Mirage are named for Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Gerald Ford and Dinah Shore. Presidents stayed at the estate of late Ambassador Walter Annenberg, a former newspaper publisher, in Rancho Mirage.

But despite the Hollywood glitz, Palm Springs seemed at the time to be largely a bastion of Middle America in the California desert, unlike the LGBTQ mecca that it has become. Wealth—or the lack of it—determined where my fellow students lived. The richer kids lived on the south side of town, in the shadow of the San Jacinto mountains. The Dream Homes subdivision east of the airport housed working-class families. The blacks lived on the north side of town. Other students lived in more affordable Cathedral City and Desert Hot Springs.

That mix exposed me to students from a variety of backgrounds. The most popular boy, Marty, came from a large Roman Catholic, Italian-American family. He was good-looking and played on the football, basketball and baseball teams. The sports section of The Desert Sun regularly carried photos of him sticking out his tongue to the side of his mouth while he shot hoops. He liked to play pranks on other students by shouting their names from the windows of classrooms while they walked between buildings; they couldn’t see him. Marty married his high school sweetheart (he later remarried) and has made a living in the tile business.

On the distaff side, Darcy was a pretty, big-boned girl, the daughter of a chiropractor. She played the flute in the band and was involved in student government. She sat behind me in an English class during our senior year. She talked to me about being in Job’s Daughters, a religious order for girls ages 10 to 20.  I recall an athlete bringing muscle relaxant to the class. She felt it on her fingers. Lacking a paper towel, she wiped it on my sideburns.

I spoke to Darcy at the 40^th-year reunion and we agreed to connect on Facebook.  I last saw her in January 2014 when I stopped by the supermarket where she worked in Palm Springs before I drove to a job interview 250 miles away. Sadly, she won’t attend the reunion at Flannery Exchange downtown. In 2014, she survived a horrific act of family violence that left her disabled. She was planning to show up riding an electric wheelchair. I called her a few weeks ago. Her speech was labored.

I’ve seen only one other classmate since the 2013 reunion: Carolyn, who lives on the outskirts of the Dallas metroplex in Greenville. I didn’t get to know her until the 40^th-year reunion and visited her three years ago while I was moving from Longview, Texas, back to Prescott, Arizona. She posts weather reports and sermons daily on her Facebook page. She said she won’t attend the reunion.

Several of my former classmates never left the Palm Springs area or returned after going away to college. Others are scattered throughout the country and one, Joe, immigrated to Israel. Joe has agreed to participate in a Zoom meeting while the fighting continues between the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas.

In recent years I tried to make light of my awkward high school experiences. For instance, I posted photos of me on Facebook standing separately next to two women whom I identified as my prom dates. One of them, a real estate agent named Summer, is young enough to be my daughter; her mother is my age.

I’d like to inject a little humor on Saturday night. Forty years ago, one former classmate, Pat, thought the first reunion was stuffy, so he dove fully clothed into the swimming pool at the Tennis Club. Others followed him.

Because I knew few students closely in high school, I approached reunions as a detached observer, like an anthropologist, sociologist or newspaper reporter that I became. I am curious about what my former classmates are doing in their lives. I’ll make the long trip to Palm Springs, descending a mountain and driving through a vast stretch of desert. And after four and a half hours of conversation, eating and dancing to a live band, the sentimental journey will end.