Of 40th reunions and more aikido and music

On Saturday the last day of September I went to my 40th high school reuinion. I went to
the 20th. 10 years ago I had a choice between the reunion and Hawaii and the island of Kauai won. So I was full of apprehension. Mainly I was very judgmental about how I perceived myself in high school and saw little relationship between the me then and the me now.

I attended Soquel High School from 1962 to 1966. I was mainly into studying, played in the band, and played basketball(and not well). My parents were very insistent that I get good grades and go to college. I had little or no social life, and, apart from a lot of time studying, tended to live a very interior life. That is largely the case even today. So I read comics. Spider-man. The Fantastic Four. Daredevil.The Silver Surfer. Dr. Strange. It’s amazing that the comics that I read then have gone on to become(or soon will) major films. I spent countless hours shooting and dribbling a basketball by myself. My coordination and physical sense came late, so, outside of shooting, I could do very little on the court. So my main sense of myself was mental.

Mainly I got the sense of myself that I could give the illusion of being smart instead of really being intelligent. That who I was there was a false self and was therefore not was really not me. So I’m happy to report that I had a wonderful time and got a whole new perspective on who I was then and how it shaped the way I am today. I hung out with just a few people. In those days they designated you x(college prep), y(possibly college prep) and z(definitely not). Me and my friends saw each other in class after class and hung out in the same after school activities. Being all college prep, you might call us the X-men(or people).

So it was really neat to re-connect with friends. Liz Sparks has taught English all over the world. She was the class valedictorian. Mike Temerin went on to become a research physicist at UC Berkeley. One of my friends, Randy Morgan, decided upon hearing that there would be a reunion/gathering to go to Ethiopia and study plants. That is just so Randy. And John Putica(the best man at my wedding) did not make it, but I traced him, re-connected, and all is well. We are all hoping, that is our little group, to have our own reunion of sorts some time soon.


So what did I learn about myself? I think the reason that I felt I didn’t fit in in high school was that I am an artist, and there was really no outlet for me to express myself. As I’ve discovered lately doing this blog, I am happiest when I am creating. Some how, though, I realized that the body was important, even though all I had was basketball. And the archetypal energies were trying to talk to me through the comic book superheroes. Diana Rigg said that watching herself in re-runs of “The Avengers” was like looking at old photo albums. And that that younger version of herself was okay. Period. After re-connecting to old friends and re-discovering how wonderful they are, I came to the same conclusion about myself. I would also like to thank a dear friend, Suzanne Emrich, for accompanying me to the gathering and giving me the necessary moral support.

The following video has more aikido weapons with music. I hope you enjoy.