Back from Switzerland

This year I spent St. Patricks Day in Switzerland. The taxi driver on my way home had his cab decorated in a Catholic theme: Maria figurine on the dashboard, rosary with a picture of the pope hanging from the fare meter, and holographic cards depicting Jesus laying around. He told me the weather had been great and the parade in Dublin outstanding this year. During a News segment on the radio about the Vatican report (also here) on the abuse scandal in Ireland, my driver didn't say anything. Church attendance here has fallen dramatically in the last few years.
I did visit the IBM research lab in Zurich, but the main purpose of my visit was a class reunion. I had not seen my classmates in almost 35 years and only in the last few years, through facebook and a web site that specializes in reuniting high school students, have I been able to reestablish contact with some of them.

My class in in 1976

There are nine mandatory school years in Switzerland. You start at 7 after kindergarten and finish with 16. Most kids then do a three or four year apprenticeship or go to a prep school for University. My class had more or less the same composition for the final five years, and some of us knew each other even earlier. We spent our early teenage years together and grew up knowing each other.
There were a couple of people who could not be found. A few people who did show up, had had no contact with any of us for even longer than me. Even our homeroom teacher of the last three years came. The organizers went through a lot of trouble bringing us back together and trying to unearth artifacts from back then.

There aren't many pictures of us from back then. Few of us had cameras and none of us had a cell phone. Apple was just being founded!
A day after the class reunion I went with Stef to the transportation museum in Luzern where I took the pictures you see sprinkled throughout this post. I thought they would fit nicely with this nostalgic story.
The reunion started at two in the afternoon and I didn't get home until four in the morning. Not all of us stayed that long, but many did. There where several hundred years worth of stories to be told among us! It was fun, interesting, sad, thought provoking, and emotional. I'm still trying to digest some of the stories I heard.

My last 35 years have been interesting with many ups and a few downs. Some of my friends had had interesting times as well. Several of them horrific, with a boy dying of cancer at four years old, a grandchild born in an American prison, addiction to drugs, and extreme cases of marital problems.
Most of the evening was very upbeat, though: counting who had the most grand children, finding out who had an eye on whom back then, who recognized whom with today's body and face, and lots of stories which are now, that many years past, pure fun.

James Bond's car in Goldfinger which was partially filmed in Switzerland. Note the gun nozzle behind the direction light, and the tire shredder sticking out from the back wheel.

I'll go back to Switzerland in June to attend the confirmation of my goddaughter. Once again in church, I will think back when it was my school friends' and my turn to be up front and start, what we then called, the second life. I hope I'll get to see some of my old and new friends and hear more stories.