Vicki Gowen:  

Last time we were all together (2000), I was re-married to a military man and living in Singapore. We were in Singapore for 3 1/2 years, then the lovely (haha) cornfields of central New Jersey, and finally here in Illinois. Don't think Chicago, think St Louis, MO. We are about 18 miles Southeast of St Louis where the husband is a private contractor for the gov't AMC Headquarters and I am a Realtor. Yes, I do have an account on Facebook, no, I don't Twitter, yes, I carry an IPhone with apps that the computer savy husband puts on it. I determined a long time ago that I am technologically challenged so it is better to leave it to the man in my life! Two of my three sons have moved down here with us, with wives and kids. The third son is re-married and still lives in Spokane. The Story Wizard says: You get one do-over, what do you do differently? That would be to never quit exercising! I found the hard way that if you don't exercise, and forget to cut back on what you eat, one can get downright chubby!! 2012 Up-date: Still married to the same delightful computer wizard and still living in S.W. Illinois with an up-side down mortgage, just like a large percentage of our neighbors and our country. I am a little more computer and tech savy (translation: I don't ALWAYS need the husband to get all three TV & sound system remotes working in synchronized harmony!), not any more chubby but still not on that exercise plan that I should be on! However, since I am inherently clumsy, I have had two broken legs (same leg, almost the same spot), left shoulder surgery for nasty Auntie Arthritis and other issues directly caused by my clumsiness, scheduled for double cataract surgery this year (Lordy! Am I really THAT old?!?!?) and a follow-up on renewing or refreshing the back fusion I had in 1998! The back fusion is just the misfortune of having a rotten gene pool! There were a handful of us (Jeff Moore, Peggy Lusk, Dave Shearer, Ron Anderson, Jerry Medley, Mary Jo White Hood, Sam Brasch, Karen Kliest Weber and a couple others) that got our 40th Reunion in 2010 off to a really late start, but a successful finish! We had about 1/3 of our class of 300+ attending and it was a very fun-filled weekend. We golfed (and drank... more soda and tea and coffee than beer!), we took a tour of the new high school (amazing what the kids of today have available to them!), we had the sit down dinner and dance with Sam's wonderful band, Diminishing Faculties, and lots of digital cameras and pictures taken and shared with real cameras and digital phones! Our classmates came from far and wide to attend. We had 20 states and Canada represented this year. We did not have anyone flying in from far flung exotic countries like Singapore or Australia this time. The states where most of us live are Washington (201), Idaho (18) and Oregon (12), but California and Montana both had 8, Texas and Arizona had 7, followed by Alaska with 4. The remaining states had one or two of us: Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Kansas, Connecticu...Expand for more