Status Updates From What Really Happened to the...

"I can't imagine an experience that feels better than being part of somebody coming into his own."

A psych tech on the value of his expertise in running counseling groups

Jamie Kelso (currently a certified White Supremacist, in a note to the 10th year reunion) ~ "By age 18, a man or woman's character is largely set. If, up to this age, the parents have freely provided car, tuition, allowances, vacations, clothes, apartments and entertainment, then they shouldn't be surprised when they discover that their son or daughter is a moral cripple." That seemed to be a valid assessment.

I grew up during these years, graduating in 1969, I recall what times were like. Palisades High California was in Brentwood uber-rich country and for many of the students making money wasn't even ever a consideration. (Not so at Cortez High in Phoenix.) Virtually every graduate of Class of '65 who got involved with marijuana and drugs, went off the rails and had accomplished nothing ten years after graduation.

SAD how many grads of the class of '65 discovered illegal drugs, marijuana, LSD & such, & their attitude changed to not wanting to achieve, basically, anything, with simply wishing to squat in the wilderness smoking dope, partaking of sexual intercourse, while ranting about capitalism. What a waste. This is what my dearly-loved, 170IQ, anarchist, older brother did, who by the way, also graduated high school in 1965.

I actually teared-up reading about the Class of '65 student who committed suicide. Poor guy. His mom claims Kahlil Gibran's 'The Prophet' seemed to help him. In the 1960s, all us teens had either the book or the 33rpm album read by Richard Harris. I too came within inches, literally, of killing myself in the late 60s, and Kahlil Gibran was no help. Only my belief in my Christian God enabled me to 'tough it out.'

What I thought would be a dull recounting of dull high school pupils a decade after their graduation, has turned out to be hard-to-put-down. A reason has got to be that I graduated in 1969 and my brother in 1965 (along with Alice Cooper). But the confessions Michael & David manage to get out of their classmates, circa 1977, are simply astounding. 1 girl admitting to the 420+ men she had intercourse with? Wow.