BHS Homecoming

Attached is a short editorial I was asked to write for the "Parakeet" by one of the students. The Homecoming Game is on Oct. 16 and the alumni are going to get involved with a float and everything. We will have a full week of activities planned to include wine and cheese parties, pot luck dinners, alumni-Bulldogs flag football game, raffles, door prizes, a walk-through of the high school, and float decorating. It is shaping up to be a fun week and I thought that it might be fun for members of our class to become "electronically involved" via the net. I would appreciate any thoughts on BHS Homecoming from any class member who might want to send it. We can always print it up in the next "Parakeet" Special Homecoming Edition. If so, have it mailed to my address at school:
lhusted@ccmail.odedodea.edu

As we approach Homecoming Week on the 13th of October, one's thoughts immediately turn to the alumni - those who have walked the same halls, sat in the same class rooms, and listened to the same lectures, taken the same tests, and endured the ennui that we so often see as "our educational experience". Truly not much of anything to get too worked up about. However, true as the above might be on a daily, routine basis, those who have come before us take on a much grander significance when we view them in light of the fact that we too will one day be counted among their company, and thus the fact that we will be the FINAL, the LAST ALUMNI OF BALBOA HIGH SCHOOL, looms large and meaningful as the final homecoming approaches.

There are a good many BHS alumni present in Panama today. They cut across every economic, social, religious, and occupational stratum that exists. They are from all walks of life. Some have had incredible good fortune in business; others have taken it on the chin. Some have produced enviable marriages; others have endured marital catastrophe. Some have kept their old circle of friends; others have nurtured new ones. Some have remained with their high school sweetheart; others haven't seen each other in 30 years. There are some that graduated in the 1930's who are still around; a number of alumni graduated last year.

As a whole, they are as diverse and varied as the individuals that they are, their lives separate and devoid of any relationship to Balboa High School.

However, for this one week, for this one last time, they will be able to set aside all the differences, put the vast majority of their problems on hold, if only for a short while, and come back to the one thing, the one place, that binds them all - the Balboa High School experience. They will be able to wipe away the dust from the memories.

They lived through those very same scenarios, which you are living through right now. During this week they can come back and re-live, and while observing you, come to understand you because they see themselves in you. They did what you are doing, felt what you are feeling, and lived what you are living. They are coming home. BHS homecoming. And this time for the last time.

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