Home Coming: 40th High School Reunion
Good evening, classmates of ‘68! What a time that was and what a time it is! I have friends, and a husband, who would rather be poked in the eye than go to a high school reunion. High school was and is a difficult time for many kids. It was difficult for me because I was bored, confused and had few encouraging role models. All I wanted to do was find freedom and have a good time. However, Time revealed that I wasn’t alone or crazy but reminded me that I had grown up in a budding little movie town called Burbank, during an amazing and tumultuous time in history. All of you played a part in that script. Hey, Truman Burbank is alive and well in all of us! Although, the initiation process to adulthood includes rejecting or leaving the tribe, it is a joyful moment to return to those roots. And I feel very blessed this evening.
I view this event as a reunion of the “Burbank Vets” or “Veterans of Domestic and Spiritual Wars”. We are all united by the mere fact of having been born mid century during the affluent baby boom and being teenagers in the ‘60s in Burbank, California. We were witness to our leader-heros being assassinated, our peers killing and being killed in an unnecessary war, civil unrest and riots and the world appearing to be turned upside down. The 60s were a doorway to a different way of thinking and being. To be a teenager at any time is to rebel, either quietly or overtly, and for many of us it meant rebelling against established institutions and/or altering our consciousness through drugs. And there were many casualties, via domestic or foreign 'war'.
I would like to acknowledge all of you, those courageous or curious enough to come back as you are and acknowledge our past, our commonality and our impermanence. It seems amazing that we’re almost 50 years old when it seems we were only 17 yesterday. Not having kids myself—-and referring to my husband and I as childless orphans--I am amazed that many of you have kids older than us! Does never having kids mean never having to grow up?
I wrote a poem when I was leaving home at 21 where the ending said: “No matter where we’ve been or how many roads we’ve traveled, all roads lead homeward.” And where is Home but that special place within the Heart?
And to all of you and all of yours, I thank you for coming and wish you all a blessed Home Coming.
I view this event as a reunion of the “Burbank Vets” or “Veterans of Domestic and Spiritual Wars”. We are all united by the mere fact of having been born mid century during the affluent baby boom and being teenagers in the ‘60s in Burbank, California. We were witness to our leader-heros being assassinated, our peers killing and being killed in an unnecessary war, civil unrest and riots and the world appearing to be turned upside down. The 60s were a doorway to a different way of thinking and being. To be a teenager at any time is to rebel, either quietly or overtly, and for many of us it meant rebelling against established institutions and/or altering our consciousness through drugs. And there were many casualties, via domestic or foreign 'war'.
I would like to acknowledge all of you, those courageous or curious enough to come back as you are and acknowledge our past, our commonality and our impermanence. It seems amazing that we’re almost 50 years old when it seems we were only 17 yesterday. Not having kids myself—-and referring to my husband and I as childless orphans--I am amazed that many of you have kids older than us! Does never having kids mean never having to grow up?
I wrote a poem when I was leaving home at 21 where the ending said: “No matter where we’ve been or how many roads we’ve traveled, all roads lead homeward.” And where is Home but that special place within the Heart?
And to all of you and all of yours, I thank you for coming and wish you all a blessed Home Coming.
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