West Iron County Class of 1970

West Iron County Class of 1970
For a few minutes, turn back the hands of time and reflect on your years in school and your friends from the early years through graduation from high school. Remember graduation—that time, the hopes, dreams, and future that were ours to create. In search of these, many of us moved throughout the United States and even to other countries. We worked in various occupations and built our careers. Throughout all of this, every five or ten years, many returned to our home town and attended our class reunions. At that time, most experienced a rediscovery of the friendships that were formed and forged decades ago and that continue to solidify and strengthen, as does tempered steel.
Personally, I have experienced these friendships. For me, forty-seven years after graduation, these relationships continue to grow. When attending reunions, it seems as though nothing has changed; our friendships pick up right where we left off. The jokes, stories (both present and past), and sharing of experiences binds us together like the fibers of a strong rope.
Recently, as a group, our high school class has decided that the five years’ lapse between our reunions is far too long. So, we now meet every few months instead and, I might add, with great results. Thanks to social media, which enables us to reach out to others in a moment’s notice, our participation has increased.
In fact, instead of meeting at Riverside Bar and Pizzeria, we have now expanded to a local center that gives us additional room, and yet affords us the opportunity to enjoy the local pizza we had growing up. We spend our time together reminiscing about the shenanigans: driving around Iron River, memories at Riverside, Sportman’s Café, dances, The Delft Theater, et cetera.
This concept of meeting as often as possible was probably borne from time. Most of the classmates are currently or will soon be retired, and more time is now available to become engaged in other things like past friendships and relationships.
For those of you who may be interested in meeting more frequently with your friends/classmates, I have a few suggestions:

1. Local newspapers/school newspapers – If you have articles in the local paper that you have saved pertaining to your classmates, bring them to share. Also, old copies of school newspapers can be run off and they can be given to your classmates.
   
2. Photos/video – When having your gathering, bring several copies of old photos to distribute to those who were in them. On the other hand, with videos you may wish to play them over a large screen TV and enjoy them together.
   
3. Mementos/memorabilia – Souvenirs of those high school years (if found) can be brought and shared with others. It may be arts and crafts, post cards, programs of events, et cetera.
   
4. Yearbooks – Locate your yearbooks and share them with others. The rest of the story and unknown facts behind the photos will give rise to more personal discussions.
   
5. Class gatherings - Commit to meeting at least once per year as, for some, time is short as we enter the early winter of our lives.
   

By the way, one of my classmates was teasing me, at one of our previous meetings, that “Danny will probably be writing about us in one of his next articles.”  Well, guess what? I did!  So, to all of my friends Tom, Larry, Kevin, Jerry, Gary, Mark, Scott, Dan, Mike,  and so many others too numerous to mention, I would like to thank you all personally for making that meaningful difference in my life—past, present, and hopefully, future. I will see all of you, God willing, in August.

​