OPINION: An open letter to my high school classmates, 40 years on

I'm writing a little while after graduation weekend at Manhattan High, 40 years after ours. This year's version took place at Bramlage Coliseum, which of course didn't exist when we walked. Ours happened in the high school gym.

I could comment on lots of changes like that, because it's obviously a different world - and a different Manhattan - four decades later. Manhattan is half-again bigger than it was. We're all carrying computers in our pockets exponentially more powerful than the most advanced supercomputers in the world in 1986.

But you know that. You've lived it. We've all adapted, being Gen Xers, and haven't made a big deal of it. Nobody else cares. And we know that. Sorta like it, actually.

What I think of at this moment is what's stayed the same.

I think of people mostly in the terms that we established in the little Manhattan world we grew up in. I judge myself - I gauge my actions, my thoughts, my achievements and shortcomings - by the standards I imagine you would apply. I try to live by the practical principles I learned from all of you.

For instance:

- Know what you're getting into in advance. Do not wear shorts to the first day of middle school. Doesn't matter how unbearably hot it is. Jeans. Not shorts. What are you, some kind of dummy?

- Respect your elders, and respect authority. You can't park in the senior lot unless you're a senior. Don't step on the M's in front of the north gym, at least not if there's anybody watching from the senior bench.

- Have some humility and good humor. If the seniors decide to pick you up and shine the M's with your butt, you'll just have to endure that indignity and laugh it off. What good would it do to whine, anyway?

- On the other hand, stand up for yourself, and stand up for others when the moment arises. If Mean Girls throw pennies at you during Sub-Deb initiation, that just ain't right.

- Which also means that just because you're in charge doesn't give you the right to act like a jerk. If you're a senior and somebody who's not a senior tries to park in that lot, you need to politely inform them of their violation. Remember what it felt like to unknowingly wear shorts the first day of middle school. Or to get your school picture taken after gym class, with wet hair.

- Endure difficulty. You're going to have to do ten sets of pushups, situps and squat-thrusts, and there's no sense complaining about it. You're also going to have to take a shower in front of other people. Get over yourself.

- Be courteous. When you get a 12-pack of Old Milwaukee Light, you also need to get at least a six of Bartles and James for the girls. The statute of limitations has run out, by the way.

- Never forget who you are, and never forget where you came from. I didn't even play football for Lew Lane, but I certainly absorbed that one. It says a lot. It says both that you shouldn't get too big for your britches, and that you should have pride in your roots. The town you came from, the work you've done to get yourself where you are, the people you care about and the people who care about you. Pride. Humility. At the same time.

See you at the reunion.

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This story was originally published June 12, 2026 at 12:03 PM.