CK McClatchy 40 Year Reunion

I still can't believe it's been 40 years since I graduated from high school. Where did the time go? Our class is not known for it's class spirit, plus through the years the master list of all the graduating class was lost. Thank goodness for social networking. Through people staying in touch with classmates, Facebook, Twitter and plain old fashion word of mouth we had a very decent turn out on Saturday night for the reunion which was held at Paragary's. I've been to just about all our reunions and I have to say this one was the most fun. At our age all the old cliques were set aside and people were genuinely glad to see each other and to renew and make new friendships. Walking into the Paragary's there was our usual group of friends plus other attendees that we didn't even know we went to school with. We all got our name tags with our graduation pictures on it and everyone was walking around reading name tags. I made new friends with those people I didn't know I went to school with and renewed old acquaintences. The "in" group were just as old as the rest us and were actually real people. They weren't the snobs and jocks and mean girls of our high schoool days. Some of us have aged well, and some..... let's just say it was interesting to see the high school jock that was so handsome, now 30 pounds heavier and with a lot less hair and the cheerleaders with gray hair and wrinkles and few added pounds.
It was interesting and fun to see how much we all changed from our high school graduation pictures.

One special moment was when a guy came up and said "I remember you" after looking at his name tag it was a guy I had gone to school with all the way from elementary school and hadn't seen since graduation. I met his wife and we both caught up on our lives and kids and grand kids. There were a lot of special moments like that seeing people you hadn't seen since graduation, catching up, showing off pictures of kids and grand kids. There were a lot of people who I would have liked to have seen but didn't attend, maybe for our 50th they will attend.

So, being a "food" blog I'll tell you about the food. Paragary's had an olive tepanade on crositni and chicken skewers as passed appetizers. They were good but nothing special. Dinner was a buffet..it was mediocre at best. They had the usual salads plus Paragary's special mushroom salad(I've always wondered why it is such a popular salad. Sliced mushrooms with some vinaigrette dressing ..big deal) a couple of pastas, chicken, salmon, and of course pizza. The flavor of the pizza was good but the crust was limp and it was cold. Desert was an apple tart in a puff pastry shell that was not very attractive (it did taste good though) and a cookie that looked like chocolate chip. I guess we weren't there for the food but it would have been nice if it was better. But then it is Paragary's and that's a whole nother story.

After dinner the DJ started up the tunes from our era and people danced and talked some more. I guess we are showing our age though, by 9 a lot of people were seen yawning and beginning to leave. By 10 I think most of us were ready to pack it in for the night. Yup..we are getting old..no more after parties at some one's hotel room or going out for drinks into the wee small hours.

This was fun, I really enjoyed myself and the reunion committee did a good job of putting this together. Can't wait for the 50th!

Here are some random pictures of the night.