by Ethan Johnson
July 25, 2007

A few months have passed since my previous roll call installment, and much has transpired since then. I have reached out and found a few people, and by and large the interactions have been positive.

However, as I have found personally, for some reason time and fading memory has left some with the impression that "school" was a gloomy, dreary mess, and every interaction with everyone else was not just negative, but unforgivably so. With the passage of time, and probably the proximity to 40 years of age for all of us, there seems to be a certain magic in the air that is smoothing over those ruffled feathers of old and inspiring people to reconsider their previous disinterest in attending the upcoming reunion.

This is in stark contrast to the 10-year reunion (I wasn't invited anyway), where not enough time had passed to fully separate people from (real/perceived) events and attitudes.

What I am finding, for those of you who might be considering reunions of your own, is that former classmates are much more receptive to the idea of meeting up after they actually talk to other former classmates. I don't have solid evidence of this, but my suspicion is that nobody wants to make the trek to an event like this and spend the night alone in the corner because they don't know anyone, or nobody wants to have anything to do with them. Once the interest is established from the outside (example: me calling people despite not being on the reunion committee) then shields are lowered, conversations are less stilted and more fun. It's rewarding to me on many levels to not only reach an old classmate who never expected to see or hear from me ever again, but to hear a solid "no" become a definite "yes". As I said to one classmate, it's a victory in and of itself that the person took my call.

I am aware that some former classmates are doing "vanity" searches and are discovering my "roll call" page without comment. (Well, mostly. Confidential to Kent who wants to see how this experiment plays out: I did get a comment from a classmate recently which was followed up with a brief round of email pong.) For the "lurkers" out there who aren't contacting me but indeed are reading some or all of these updates, here are a few morsels of information about members of the Marion Hills Elementary class of 1981:

(Note: Maiden names are used for clarity and to protect classmate privacy.)

Margaret Crichlow: Married, has a son and daughter. Lives near the old neighborhood. One of the few classmates I have run into (by design or by accident) post graduation. As told in a previous entry, she and I went on a school tour while I was in town. She and I are doing our part to track down former Marion Hills classmates.

Gretchen Schwenker: Married, lives in the western suburbs of Chicago. I believe she said she is a teacher now but I didn't get the full scoop. I'm like Hank Hill that way. Since I never actually had a Junior High yearbook, she offered to scan hers in and email it to me to aid in my search and recovery efforts. Amusingly, she did indeed find the "roll call" page and was on the fence about returning my earlier phone message. If life could be portrayed as a split screen, we were having nearly identical back-and-forth waffling sessions about whether we should contact each other after all of these years. We had a thoroughly enjoyable conversation. I hope she concurs. :-)

Nuray Alin: I managed to track her down, and at long last a critical error in my memory has been patched up. I thought she was Aleutian (south of Alaska), but is actually from Turkey. Not sure how I confused one with the other. She just had a baby, and it took her a moment to remember who I was, since she came into the school mid-way through 4th grade. Then she remembered that her first Marion Hills memory was of Guy Lewis and I. "I don't know what the memory is, exactly," she said, "but I just know you two were part of it." She is married and lives fairly close to the old neighborhood. She works for a hospital but is on maternity leave right now. She wasn't planning to attend the reunion because of the baby, etc, but I think she is leaning closer to the "yes" column than before we spoke.

Bobby Trujillo: Sorry, but he'll always be "Bobby" to me. I stopped by his parents' home when I was in town a few weeks ago, and got his contact information from his mother. Bobby is married and has 2 cats and 2 dogs. No human children, but I was amused to hear him say, "people like us (he and I)... our pets are family. Not everyone gets that." We talked for easily 2 hours, and while he still hasn't sent me his email address it was great to catch up. He was in Manhattan during 9/11, to the point of being chased by the debris cloud when the towers fell. Holy crap. He is living a quieter existence not far from the old neighborhood.

Kim Guidi: As told here on ethmar.com in the comments section of the "roll call" article, Kim just moved to Arizona and does not expect to be present at the reunion. As I recall she took on a new project management job out there. Her brother Jim is laying low, and may not be at the reunion either.

Lavern Lang: I was frankly amazed that I reached her and had a round of email pong. She is married and works as a loan officer. She is considering moving to Houston or Fort Lauderdale, but nothing has been firmly decided. I was glad to hear that she is doing well, and she thus far plans to attend the reunion.

Jeannie Komarek: We had a brief email exchange. She is married, and plans to attend the reunion. That's all I know.

Joe Ehardt: Divorced, has a daughter, and lives in Austin. Works as a research scientist. My Dad predicted Joe would grow up to be a scientist, and there you have it then. Joe is planning to attend the reunion, and we may have a meetup either down there or up here regardless. Joe was one of the first classmates I spoke at length with, and he went from "hell no" to "hell yes" in the course of our conversation.

Guy Lewis: Never married, but is in a long-term relationship. Has a daughter. Works as a house painter. He wasn't going to attend the reunion because like me, he graduated from a different school. He said if I'm going, he'll go. He turned up on the "Missing in Action" list from the reunion committee, so we'll see.

Dave Matz: Never married, lives in Darien and works at LaGrange Hospital. He's also on the MIA list but I'll have to circle back with him and Guy to prompt them to contact the reunion committee.

Emmett Haughian: We had a brief email conversation a la Jeannie, and he said he was planning to attend the reunion. That's really all I know.

Lisa D'Angelo: Married, three kids. She is interested in attending the reunion.

Donna Folkens: Married for 19 years, 2 kids, new job. Lovin' life. Planning to attend the reunion.

Jackie Bull: Married, two kids, lives in North Carolina. She's my point person on the reunion committee. If you are a former classmate (elementary through high school) and want to get in touch with the reunion committee, contact me privately and I will send you the email address as warranted.

Heid Hammond: Never married, lives close to the northwest suburbs. She is working on making the transition into Occupational Therapy. She is interested in attending the reunion.

Dave Spera: Margaret managed to reach him via email. He's interested in attending the reunion. That's all I know right now.

Mike Bushen: Ditto.

Dawn Roselund: Married, just gave birth to her second daughter. Works for the University of Illinois, but is about to change jobs. Currently does not plan to attend the reunion.

Ravi Garg: Married, has children (plural), and works as a cardiologist. Relocated to Kansas City about a year ago. I haven't spoken to him directly but got some info by way of his father and his wife. I passed along the reunion committee email address so either way he's covered.

Updates? Corrections? Hot leads? Outrage? Use the contact link at the top of this page (feed readers will need to actually come over here to the site) and let me know. Or leave a comment, of course. <EM>