40th (really ?) reunion

As noted in Wikipedia, McBurney School may be best remembered as the destination of Holden Caulfield when he left all the equipment of the Pencey Prep fencing team on the subway in J.D. Salinger's book Catcher in the Rye. Salinger was briefly a student there, as were actors Henry Winkler and Richard Thomas and several other entertainment and business celebrities.

By a twist of fate, so was I. After attending public schools on Long Island, our family moved to Manhattan, and I found myself in the junior class at McBurney. My class size had shrunk from about 800 students at Oceanside High School to 72 at McBurney, and there were lots of other cultural differences, too. The school was located on West 63rd Street and was adjacent to, and shared facilities with the West Side YMCA. It has since gone out of business.

As a result of my move, I took driver's education in NYC. The first lesson was Columbus Circle at rush hour. You learn quickly.

At OHS, I had been one of the worst people on the track team. At McBurney, I was co-captain of the track team.

Well, this weekend, there was an all-class reunion for the school. It included the 40th year reunion for those of us from the class of '68. Those attending had had a variety of careers; e.g., secret service, ATF investigator, police detective, airline pilot, endocrinologist, immigration attorney, director of a judicial conduct review agency, medical equipment supplier, and director of a public service internship at a law school. Oh, and a sewer guy turned hospital CEO.

And virtually everybody either had less hair, grayer hair, and/or a larger belt size. In short, it looked much like any other 40th reunion class in America!