Y.I.s and Forever Friends

Reflexion

Hundreds of aging ISBers convened last night in Daytona Beach. I combined junior and sophomore years of high school so I fit awkwardly between the year group I mostly knew and the year I intended to graduate with if we had not left for the unanticipated return to South America. I saw a few familiar faces but am surprised how much we have all changed physically.

One woman, part of our school singing group, The Young Internationals, was there fitting perfectly into her YI outfit. I knew her by name as soon as I saw her even though we didn’t run in the same group. I saw a couple of other folks struggling to remember what their room numbers were. That was heartbreaking. I saw a guy I remembered as Mr. Sport at ISB in my years, then I had the luck to teach him 25 years later at the National War College (he did not say anything but today is another day). But most were aging people as I keep saying—and as I am.

Reunions, as I opined yesterday, seek to recreate experiences from our youth. I suppose we also expect reunions to validate who we think we are. We are kids who grew up overseas.

That doesn’t sound like much to someone living in a single place her or his life. But kids uprooted overseas are always different, regardless of circumstances bringing them to a foreign land. We had one foot in the door as ‘Mericans and one foot exploring (sometimes unwillingly) other cultures. We often became translators between the cultures.

But being in two camps means we never felt entirely embraced by either. I suppose that is why we need recreated the Young Internationals with a singalong after the cocktail hour. Or today, the eager athletes will play for their erstwhile ‘houses’, the intramural designations using colours intended to create fellowship and keep us out of trouble. Tonight we convene for a big dinner to award prizes to the winning ‘house’.

Bangkok had lots of trouble for those who sought it. Sadly, some just stumbled into it. But it was around us as it is in Tulsa or Brentwood or anywhere stateside. We just had more direct access to the drugs and lots of other stuff. Most people survived fine but some did not.

The poignancy of seeing the slideshow of ‘Forever Friends’, those who have passed away from the classes between 1960 and 1989, was powerful. Many succumbed to cancer as does the general population yet others fell prey to other problems, some while we were still there in school.

.

This is all pretty normal yet we each are unique and focus on our personal interactions with others. Most importantly humans crave those unique experiences bonding us to others. ISB provided that and those of us here (including a fellow who graduated from the School’s inaugural graduation in 1957) embody that.

But our friends and bonding mates are spread further than those of everyone else. Even in this world of so much movement, we were an international school by design.

We aren’t different as humans from someone graduating from Joplin’s High School but we uniquely happened to be somewhere more exotic. Sometimes holding those two ideas in our minds, in a period of such polarization, is a test for us all.

Oh, and we got a terrific rain over the beach. Such a joyful add on. FIN