So instead of waiting for their 65-year reunion, members of Phoenix Union High School's Class of 1937 gathered this weekend, for what they say is their last get-together. "We needed to have it this year so there would be more peple to celebrate with," said Virginia Knox,80. "But there is a time to stop. At a certain point, you can't do it anymore. Since taking registration, one man died, another went into the hospital and can't come."
The reunion committee sent invitations to the 90 graduates it still could locate from its graduating class; 50 showed up. That's out of an original 737 students, what graduates say was the school's largest class. Many still are friends. Others keep in touch only by Christmas cards or funeral notices.
Still, they are forever linked by the common bond of high school. When they gathered at the Hilton Suites in Phoenix, they exchanged stories of how things have changed, from the way high school kids dress to how many high schools now are in Phoenix. And they joked about their age, using cocktail napkins that proclaimed, "It's hard to be nostalgic when you can't remember anything."
They caught up on which classmates have died and who isn't coming, including Jack Elam, who used to star in Westerns. Woodrow Lewis, 81, peered through the room of classmates, trying to find someone he recognized. "People don't look the same at all," said Lewis. "I haven't recognized a soul, I look at name tags and still don't." But he was still glad he came. It's fun to see everyone," he said, "to see how all our lives turned out."
(a popular song in 1937)
Sequenced by Sal Grippaldi