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Retrospectives

Not everybody made it

This year marks the 20th anniversary of my leaving high school, and the Old Boys’ Association has a reunion dinner organised which I’ll certainly be going to. I’m even thinking I might go early for the tour of the school, to see how it’s changed. (A teacher I knew at a different school is now principal, for a start.)

The MHSOBA web page has a summary listing of which ex-students they know about: name, years at the school, postcode. The postcodes are mostly in Victoria, with the odd UK (or possibly Canadian) format postcode, and one or two at five-digits, apparently in the USA. One I know to be Polish, and a couple in formats I don’t recognise. Some are blank – out of contact.

And there’s another column: “Dec”. Of the roughly three hundred names, three four have this column filled-in. If I’m reading it right, these are the people who — like my friend Charles (who attended another school) — didn’t make it to their 20th anniversary year. It was a big year group, and I didn’t know these guys personally, but that saddens me a bit.

Maybe we should toast them on the night.

By Daniel Bowen

Transport blogger / campaigner and spokesperson for the Public Transport Users Association / professional geek.
Bunurong land, Melbourne, Australia.
Opinions on this blog are all mine.

9 replies on “Not everybody made it”

Wow, I never knew that you were an old boy at MHS – I’m currently a student there. Learnt something new today, and perhaps you should work on getting your face up on the walls as a ‘famous’ old boy ;)

Daniel, you must go. I’m due for my 40 year anniversary dinner this year – I just hope this time it’s not cancelled through lack of interest, like my 30th one was. Same school, by the way.

There’s hardly a more appropriate toast on such occasions than “To absent friends”. I’ve had occasion to preceed this with a few words in the past and always had to swallow a couple of times before saying it.
Best of luck, Daniel. And my respect.

Definitely go!!
My 35th Reunion is coming up in September of this year. I am on the Reunion committee and am having lots of fun!!! I can’t wait until the party in September!!

BTW – Canadian Postal Codes are 6 digits/letters long.
Letter/Number/Letter Number/Letter/Number. The first letter is the Province and the rest tell you the city, part of the city, etc. IF the code is Canadian, you can find out where the person lives (the area, not the place) by going to the Post Office Web site:
http://canada411.ca/
(Make sure you have your popup blocker working as they use a lot of advertising pop ups.

Have fun
j :):):):):)

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