Would you relive your high school days if you could?

If you could go back and redo your high school days, would you? And if so, what would you do differently?

I saw this question asked on Facebook recently and it got me thinking. I’d probably say yes. And while I was on the honor roll, the thing I would change right away is I would have studied more to get an even better GPA. I know, boring. Oh, and ask a few more girls out on dates.

I thought about the question the other night when attending BCHS’ opening home football game of the season. Kudos to the Dr. Brendan Holly, the school’s band and choir director, who came up with the idea of inviting Eagle alumni to come back and sit in with the band one more time. I think it was a great idea and participants, about a dozen in all, seemed to have a great time.

When getting a comment from Holly for my article on the topic in last week’s paper, I mentioned to him that I will now be waiting for the track coach to ask some of us old farts back this season to compete one more time. Now that I think about it, that’s a broken hip waiting to happen since I was a hurdler and jumper.

Again, going back to the original question, I enjoyed my time here in high school …for the most part. But I know many didn’t. There were times in my adult life when I worried I had peaked in high school. That’s not necessarily a good feeling. But by the time I hit 30, I was living in Hawaii and working as a sports writer, so I quickly got past that thought. Palm trees and ocean breezes will do that to you.

While I enjoyed my high school days, as mentioned, I know not everyone did. And those people would likely not want to relive those days, even if for just a night.

I think this is evident when it comes to attendance at class reunions. My class has had five and a half reunions since receiving our diplomas from Principal Brian Fox on Bruce Eaton Field in 1987. The half was our most recent, 35th, a few years ago. I tried to organize something last minute and while fun, the number of attendees could have fit into a pair of midsize SUVs.

Our class has always been a close one and reunion attendance, while not ideal, has been good each time. We had a five, 10, 20, 25, 30 and the aforementioned 35-year reunions. Not bad for a class with 187 kids. By the way, we joke because we had 187 in the class of 1987. That little nugget comes in handy as we get older.

We had our biggest turnout for the 20th. I think I went through my yearbook counting the number of faces I saw during our four-day event and I came up with 125. Not bad.

But right around that time is when Facebook was created. I still say that it’s hurt class reunions more than it has helped. Here’s why I say that. One of the things that appeals to many when it comes to reunions is to not only see old friends but see what they now look like. In every class you have the ugly duckling who turned into the beautiful swan. But because of Facebook, we now know what classmates look like, their jobs, relationship status, kids, vacations and even what they had for lunch that day.

I think one way Facebook has helped reunions is that for those who did not enjoy high school or haven’t kept in touch with many classmates, they can now see that the prom queen and star athlete lead normal lives and that we’ve all gained a few pounds or lost hair in some areas and gained it in others. In other words, any high school insecurities one may have had would hopefully diminish.

I’ve attended each of our reunions. But I will admit, I gave going to my 25th some serious thought. It was a few months after I had gotten divorced and left Hawaii. While many of my classmates were aware of these facts, I wasn’t in a good place emotionally to talk with those who didn’t know. But I put my big-boy shorts on and went and had a wonderful time.

It’s one thing to see classmates, and schoolmates for that matter, on social media and keep up with their lives but it’s so much better to see them in person and laugh, take photos and reminisce about days gone by. My 40th will be here in two years and a few of us have decided to form a committee of sorts in order to get as many classmates together for it as possible. This also eliminates putting all the planning on the shoulder of one or two classmates. But until then, I will be practicing on those hurdles, just in case we get the call, to relive my high school days over again, even for just one day.