{"id":24007,"date":"2014-11-30T06:00:38","date_gmt":"2014-11-30T11:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=24007"},"modified":"2014-11-29T17:31:10","modified_gmt":"2014-11-29T22:31:10","slug":"high-school-memories-remind-us-how-far-weve-come","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=24007","title":{"rendered":"High School memories remind us how far we’ve come"},"content":{"rendered":"

We may be a bit older, but we’re wiser for the journey<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Kelly Hockenberry<\/strong>, Columnist, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"UTKellyColumn<\/a>Last night was my 25th high school reunion. That is painful to type out in black and white. How\u00a0is it possible that a QUARTER of a CENTURY has gone by? Putting it that way makes it sound\u00a0even more horrifying.<\/p>\n

There was a bright spot, however. My girlfriend Sharon pointed out that enduring our high\u00a0school years in Delaware County in the late 1980\u2019s meant that we had no choice but to evolve\u00a0into more attractive versions of ourselves.<\/p>\n

Gone are the bangs, teased to a death defying height\u00a0and shellacked with Aqua Net. Gone are the blue shadowed eyelids and coal rimmed inner liner\u00a0(remember that? burning our black pencils with a cigarette lighter and putting so much on that\u00a0it would pool in the corner of your eyeball? it makes me want to gag just thinking about it) Gone\u00a0are the MC Hammer pants, acid wash jeans and pastel popped collars of yesteryear. And I say,<\/p>\n

THANK GOODNESS.<\/p>\n

There is nothing worse than peaking in high school. I tell my kids all the time that when\u00a0they have the good fortunate to return (several decades later) to the scene of their grueling\u00a0educational experience, they will be pleasantly surprised by how much they\u2019ve grown…not only\u00a0physically, but emotionally and spiritually. The silly antics of seventeen and eighteen year olds\u00a0that have such significance now will be but a hazy memory in years to come. Daily stressors\u00a0that you can\u2019t imagine EVER going away: homework, pop quizzes, applying to and selecting a\u00a0college, dating and playing team sports will fade into the cob-webbed, recesses of the brain.<\/p>\n

And, for good reason. Not to say that these experiences are without merit. They help to build\u00a0character, enrich your life and prepare you for the REAL stressful times ahead.<\/p>\n

If you have it all figured out in high school, what is there to look forward to?<\/p>\n

Last night was a blast. We danced into the wee hours of the morning to the music of our youth.\u00a0We reminisced about the good ol\u2019 days like the geriatric bunch that we are. And, we looked\u00a0damn good while we did it.<\/p>\n

Happy Weekend<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We may be a bit older, but we’re wiser for the journey By Kelly Hockenberry, Columnist, The Times Last night was my 25th high school reunion. That is painful to type out in black and white. How\u00a0is it possible that a QUARTER of a CENTURY has gone by? Putting it that way makes it sound\u00a0even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24006,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[245,7],"tags":[6469,6468,6470],"class_list":["post-24007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-featured","tag-growing-up","tag-high-school-reunions","tag-the-journey-of-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24007"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24008,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24007\/revisions\/24008"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}