Reunion should be a happy occasion

By PERCY A OSTONAL
JPNHS  Batch '66
Michigan, USA
 
JUST LIKE any other high school reunions of sort, it takes awhile getting things in order.

And though it was easy to say it than done, organizers from overseas as well as their counterparts in Manila had to put painstaking efforts in welcoming everyone's opinions, suggestions and alternatives.

Quite honestly, after a series of exchange of ideas and volume discussions through  telephone calls, texting messages and emails, normally "compromised resolutions" were the only options left for everyone to accept.

Otherwise, occasion of such beauty would never materialize.

After 46 years, graduates of Gregorio Perfecto High School in Tondo Manila. (Batch 66) will have their first-ever class reunion in Manila and with some 40 attendees (including spouses) from the USA and Canada and a few dozens more from Australia and the Middle-East countries (OFW) as well as those based in the Philippines.

Certainly, this would be "nostalgic and magic moments" for everyone.

When we flew to Sacramento, California, last August and joined my wife's fellow batch mates coming from British Columbia, Canada, Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago and Virginia Beach to have a mini-reunion among themselves in North America and at the same time finalized what was started as mere "concept gatherings" into "totoong reunion sa Pilipinas", I was asked to speak on "tips on how class reunion should be".

I told them: Having gone home three times in the past, my advice was simply “be happy … and be happy and take a walk down memory lane with everyone and relive yester-years’ joys, laughter and pains.