I went to the Fish Hoek Founder's Day assembly today - 59 years. It's been 40 years since we matriculated and so much has changed since then, particularly in technology - we didn't have any - and subjects offered at school. Even the school has moved - the primary school is in the old high school premises and the high school relocated to where the hockey and soccer fields were many years ago. Although I have taxied children to and from the school over the years and made a few visits to the office, I haven't really been back to school since 1973. A fellow pupil, who is now a professor of chemistry, gave an entertaining and inspiring speech and the new principal showed us how extremely fortunate the school is to have a visionary leader who can connect with the kids without being too familiar or patronising.
My old maths teacher was there and I was very happy to be able to thank him for his efforts in trying to teach me something of maths, even though there was no luck there - he would just shake his head when he saw my maths book. I asked him if he thought our year had had the most fun and he said, every matric class has the most fun. A wise man!
We toured the school - amazing facilities for art, drama and music, as well as sport and technology. We had only the basics in our day - the internet hadn't been invented and we still used manual typewriters!
We chatted, not so much about old times as the times in between, and when I left some 2 1/2 hours later, I had a strange feeling of disorientation, as though I had travelled back in time and not quite made it back to the future. Tomorrow is the 40th reunion dinner - I'm really looking forward to that!
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