Life, so they say, is but a game
And they let it slip away
Love, like the autumn sun
Should be dyin', but it's only just begun

Like the twilight in the road up ahead
They don't see just where we're goin'
And all the secrets in the universe

Whisper in our ears
And all the years
Will come and go
Take us up, always up

We may never pass this way again
We may never pass this way again
We may never pass this way again

We May Never Pass This Way (Again) 
Seals and Crofts 

Fifty years since the Cumberland High School Class of 1974 graduated.

Fifty-years!

Many of us, while we may remember moments when high school was fun, almost to a person, couldn’t wait to leave. We wanted to grow up. We wanted to drive cars. We wanted to make our own decisions. We wanted to see the world.

Boy, were we foolish.

What's to come is still unsure: In delay there lies no plenty; Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty, Youth's a stuff will not endure. 
William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

While nostalgia can whitewash memories, the intervening years have shown us how little we appreciated that brief time. In our desire to become “adults,” we let some of life’s most uncomplicated, most enjoyable times pass by.

Now, not every moment was a joy. Puberty is not a gentle transition. Entering CHS at fourteen years old in what was the brand-new Freshmen building, we had little notion of the transformation awaiting us.

Raging hormones are an insidious lot. But we survived.

Those first classes in the first week of high school seemed interminable. But we settled into a rhythm. Yet 1974 was so far in the future we thought it might never come. We didn’t experience time in months, seasons, or decades as we do when we age; we experienced it in seconds, minutes, and hours.

When we walked into the Freshmen Building in September 1970, the top song of the year was Paul Simon’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” A song quite appropriate for the time.

We had four years to go in a world on fire.

The war in Vietnam was raging. Over the next few years, a President would authorize a break-in leading to his resignation, we’d put more astronauts on the moon, and lived through an energy crisis.

In June 1974, the number one song was Barbara Streisand’s “The Way We Were.” Such a timeless classic still resonates today. Whenever I hear the song, it’s as if it was new. Memories do indeed light the corners of my mind.

The intervening years since graduation but a brief moment, the time between the beginning in September 1970 and June 1974 took forever.

Or so it seemed.

We were out in the real world in the blink of an eye. For some, this meant college. For others, it meant the parade fields and screaming drill instructors of the military or a job.

For some, high school was the peak. For others, it was the end of the beginning.

Some followed a well-established path, others took detours or hit dead ends. Most began to realize those four years weren’t all that bad.

Some made friendships that have lasted to this day. Others saw friends they thought of as lifelong move on, never to return.

Some of our classmates didn’t survive to graduate. Some only made it a few years after graduation. Too many will be gone soon enough. Life has no guarantees, yet somewhere among us is the last surviving member of this class.

Imagine!

The 1974 Class of Cumberland High School
was the finest group of people ever to grace those halls.

Joe Broadmeadow

Some of our classmates walked out the door, never to look back. Some may not have let it go.

But we found ourselves no longer part of the group of people we’d spent those four years.

And now, this October 12^th, those of us fortunate enough to go to our fiftieth-year reunion will gather and remember.

For many, there will be moments recalling the experiences; the teachers, the games, the concerts, the parties, the fake IDs, and the adventures our parents might have suspected but never found out about. Or maybe they chose not to know.

Whatever you recall from those years, good, bad, or indifferent, it was the most formative time of your life. The closest one could be to being an adult without the burdensome responsibilities.

Even if we didn’t realize it.

This may be the last moment you have to talk to your classmates. With a class our size, it may be the first and last time you speak.

Life is a series of comings and goings. In 1970, we all converged on Cumberland High School to begin a journey together. In 1974, we all left to start our own journeys. 2024 is a fitting moment to be together. We have the perspective of the intervening decades and (most) of the memories still intact.

The beauty of coming together these fifty years hence is reminding each other of that youthful innocence, if even for the briefest of moments.

And when you think about it, not much has really changed since then. Has it?

But there is also a duty here. A tradition to uphold. An obligation to preserve something bigger than oneself. There is one undeniable, irrefutable, immutable truth. The 1974 Class of Cumberland High School was the finest group of people ever to grace those halls.

Bar none. No one can ever deny that no matter how hard they try.

Let’s never forget it!

P.S. Just in case someone wants to make fun of my graduation photo, keep in mind I have the yearbook, the latest version of Photoshop AI, and an active imagination. And if you feel safe because you are not in the yearbook, I will find your picture.

Proceed with caution!