Friday, February 11, 2011

Birthday memories by proxy

Kathy (in photo), another classmate, and I share the same February 9th birthday, and we all went to school together in Richmond. Here Kathy good-naturedly holds the "Happy Birthday Lynn" sign while wearing the birthday sombrero.

The years and the miles fell away Wednesday night when a number of school classmates gathered in Bon Air (on the outskirts of Richmond) for a get-together that brought this growing troupe of high school friends to their old stomping grounds for what has become an occasional impromptu happy hour. This week's gathering happened to fall on the birthday of three in our group ... Kathy (pictured above), Shirley, and me. While in school, we never knew we shared the same birthday but through the wonders of Facebook, it is now common knowledge to all. Thank you, Mark Zuckerberg!

Kathy drove to Richmond from Leesburg to join the festivities and partake of some birthday cake and fellowship at a restaurant in a shopping center that didn't exist when we were all young. Built on what was known in those days as Snead's Hill, it had been a farm field where the kids from Bon Air gathered for sleigh riding on winter days. Since Shirley nor I were able to be there, birthday signs were made to include us in the festivities, and photos were shared on Facebook.

The entire evening was all spearheaded by Debbie, our fearless Pied Piper who has been rounding us up since last summer when she was flat on her back in bed with a back injury ... and got bored. She pulled out the high school year book, began scanning photos, and started hunting for us on Facebook. Some of us were already there ... others have signed up and become part of the ever growing circle of 1970s kids reuniting after all these years. Our graduating class was the largest at the time in Chesterfield County with more than 550 students so there are many more to be found.

Thanks, Debbie, for getting bored and picking up that old year book ... it has turned out to be a good thing.

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