What happened to your high school friends?

Class of '94. About 270 in my graduating class.

I'd guess about 250 of them still live in the state, and 230 still live within a five-mile radius of our crappy little town. A handful have died, I think 7 or 8. One, whose yearbook ambition was to be the grand wizard of the KKK, took too many drugs and jumped off a fifth-story hotel balcony.

Of my close friends, none really left town. I don't keep in touch with any of them.

One became a prison guard. One is a Postal Service letter carrier and a bigot.

I stopped talking to another one of my friends because one night he came to a party with me to meet up with some of my college friends, at which he asked an Asian one if he "had a rice paddy" in his backyard. I ran into him once when I was home, and he had gained probably 250 pounds, putting him flirting with 500?

One friend who never was all that ambitious, but had a street-smart sense to him apparently runs his own medical records company. Good for him.

I went to our 10-year reunion, and had a much better time talking to people I didn't know so well instead of the group that had comprised my close friends.

 

My closest friends are the guys I hung around with in high school - we graduated 25 years ago.
I don't see them regularly - I see one or two more often than others. Almost to a man they;ve been quite successful and live in various parts of the globe.
Three CEOs, a couple of VPs, a law professor, economics consultant, restaurant owner. (I can't quite match their wealth, but they do admire some of the exploits that journalism affords, so I can at least hold my head up)
What's good is when we are together its not all reminiscing about the "glory days". They are much more interesting people now than they were then.
But what's best is, despite the lofty professions and titles, we can each bring each other down to earth quick as a lick with a 30-year-old barb or whatever
Great fun

 

All of my friends from school grew up and settled down,
And they mortgaged off their lives.
One thing's not said too often, but I think it's true:
They just get married 'cause there's nothing else to do.

I'm still sittin' on a fence.
You can say I got no sense.
Trying to make up my mind really is so horrifying,
So I'm sittin' on a fence.

 

My best friend from high school is some kind of sales guy now and is talking about going back to school to finish his bachelor's (we're pushing 50). Another friend works in computers for the state, another is retired from the Navy and is doing something in East Texas. And one guy I knew was recently convicted of murder and will probably live out his days in prison. And his older brother died a couple of weeks after the trial. Terribly sad story.

 

Who knows, who cares?