Whatever Happened To....?

   When Maggie and I were visiting at the shop last week she told me that an old boyfriend of hers (Chris Moyer) that I knew had just died at his 50th high school reunion.   That lead to several minutes of remembering other old friends our age(Danny, Debbie, Jay) who have died in recent years and then a couple of rounds of  'I wonder  whatever happened to....?' but neither of us were very good at filling in  many of the blanks.  After supper that night I searched Facebook and Google for some of them but only found one.   I didn't recognize the picture that came up so I PM-ed Tim and asked him if he recognized it.  He did and he suggested sending the guy a 'Friend Request'.  I hemmed and hawed and finally suggest he do it...and he did but he hasn't heard from the guy yet.  It's gotten me thinking.  Our 50th class reunion will be in 3 years and will it be worth attending?
   We did not attend the HCCC campus on the hill in Herkimer.  Our campus was in Ilion:  one floor of the Remington Factory,  a couple of diners on Main St and Central Ave and the State St Bowling Alley(back in those years 18 was the legal age to drink!)  Most of the students commuted either by car or bus every day or rented apartments in Ilion.  (Maggie and Debbie had one on John St.)  We met every morning in the 'lounge' where there were rows of small lockers, went to classes along a single hallway where the professors also had their offices, visited the diners (Panaritis's was on Central Ave) for coffee and lunch, fed bread to the turtles in the fire levee or ditch on the north side of the building from our 2nd floor classroom windows.  The rumble of the forklifts on the floor above us helped many students (me included) decide to get that 4-yr degree and not follow our parents into a factory job!
    Many friendships were made in those 2 years...and a few marriages.   There were always 20-25 kids at parties we gave and attended during that time and the years immediately afterwards.  But where are they now?  I use to see a few of my old classmates around town but now as we've reached retirement age it's fewer and fewer.  And what about the ones who were from Utica?  Or who went out of the area or out of the state to finish their education? (I renewed my friendship with Tim by asking him on Facebook if I had gone to college with him.   He asked if I had forgotten him...it had only been 45 years!)  I really don't look forward to going to the reunion to find out that most of my classmates are dead.  So in the next 3 years I'm going to try and locate as many of my old friends from HCCC as I can.   If you know of anyone who went to The Factory  during 1968-70 please let me know where they are living.  I may actually lose my mind completely and volunteer to help organize the reunion.
Found another one who's died: Frank Handzel, Utica, 8/28/2015.