Facebook Initiated Reunion

I am officially coming out of the closet. No, not that closet.

I am an addict of Facebook. Though, I must say this is a relative thing. I know people, (Duckman), who are WAY more addicted than I am.

However, I must say that like my methadone and prostitute addition, it does have rewards. This weekend I got together with 27 friends from grade school.

Grade school, you ask? I went to a private school, St. Anthony's in Baltimore for 8 years. This school doesn't exist anymore. I think they call it Sister Mary Mother of the Multiracial Diversified Non-denominational Requiem in an effort to attract more members.

Anyway, when I first got on Facebook in August, I started first searching my current friends. When I exhausted that, I started looking for older friends that I haven't seen in years. I searched by typing in their names, but wasn't getting very far. Then I realized that when I selected my high school, I could change the year and it would bring up graduats of selected year. Learning this, I changed my strategy.

Most of my fellow classmates continued their private-Catholic education at one of the dozen or so Catholic high schools in the Baltimore area. Therefore, I found the homepage for the high school, then found the class of 1990.

The first school I searched was John Carroll, in Bel Air, because I knew a few girls from St. Anthony's that went there. I found one right away, let's call her Dani Stark. After reconnecting with her, I decided to create a St. Anthony's page and started directing people there.

After that, I searched Calvert Hall, Curley, Notre Dame Prep, Seton, Keough, Boys' Latin, St. Paul's, Gilman, Towson Catholic… The next thing you know I had a bunch of people.

Then Dani Stark suggested that we have a reunion. I thought that was a great idea. However, I warned her that I work full time, coach 2 soccer teams, and don't have too much free time on my hands. Being a stay-at-home mom, God bless her, she started doing all the leg work. She made the phone calls, sent the emails, and got the word out. The next thing you know we have about 50 people out of 90-some. About 30 committed to the unofficial reunion.

That day finally came on Saturday. It was great to see everyone. I pretty much lost touch with everyone after 8th grade graduation. We moved from Baltimore to Bel Air and my parents wanted nothing to do with driving me back and forth to see my old friends, so I was pretty much forced to find new friends.

So I reconnected with Greg and Dave and Chuck and Steve, 4 of my closer friends at the time. I saw the twins, Kathleen and Kristine. I could name everyone, but they know who they are and you pretty much don't. However, I did learn that one of my fellow former classmates is good friends with a mutual friend of mine. Small world? And another's mom works here at American Amalgamated Corrugated Conglomerates of America. And 2 girls married classmates of mine from Bel Air High School.

I took a bunch of photos and uploaded them in Facebook. Everyone was excited to see them. Those that couldn't make it were even more jealous when they saw the pictures. We all agreed that we will have another reunion next year when the weather gets warmer and hopefully get more people.

One funny comment that came back was something to the affect of - "I'm disowning my current friends and going back to all my St. A's friends." Another one was, "I would so much rather go to a St. A's reunion than a high school or college reunion." I share those sentiments. It's amazing how much of a bond you can have with people that you haven't seen in 22 years, yet only spent 8 years with. But it sure was good to be there.

So thank you, Facebook, for bringing us together. So, if you're a hater, Facebook is not just for high school punks and sluts trying to tally up hundreds of people that they call friends. It's there for the rest of us, too.