A party with high school classmates / 高校の同窓会

日本文が後ろに続きます。

One day a postcard arrived at my flat inviting me to a party by an old boys and girls’ association of the high school to be held on 27 April this year at Takarazuka. I had never seen such kind of party by high school classmates before since the commencement ceremony 21 years before. I wanted to see how the people changed their faces and figures from what they had been in the high school age, so I replied to the sender that I was going to attend and booked airline tickets.

As the plane from Narita Airport to Osaka was to depart at 6.25 in the morning, and there were no trains to Narita from where I live early enough to catch the plane, I drove a car to the airport at midnight. I parked it in the car park to sleep until the terminal building opened.

ある日、家に１枚のハガキが届きました。見ると高校の同窓会の案内。同窓会なんてこれまでやったことなくて、卒業式以来21年ろくに顔も合わせたことがなかったので、21年でみんなどう変わってるか見てみたいということもあって、参加表明して飛行機のチケットも予約しました。

成田発大阪行の飛行機は朝6:25発で、間に合う電車がないので、クルマで成田まで行き、空港の駐車場に停めてターミナルビルが開くまで車中泊しました。

I didn’t miss the plane :-)　なんとか乗り遅れずにすみました 🙂

I arrived at the venue for the party just one hour before the party beginning time. Some people were always there. Some teachers were invited as well. Almost all of them were retired from the job and looked quite different from what they had been 21 years before.

会場には１時間ほど前に到着。もうすでに何人か来ていました。先生方もいらっしゃっていて、もうほとんどは定年退職済みなのですが、21年前とはまったく別人のようになってました。

The man making a speech on the stage is Kenkichi Hagiwara, who was an information processing teacher and also a coach at the track & field club. He brought up two Olympic athletes, Naoko Sakamoto and Yurika Nakamura. Sakamoto ran in the women’s marathon in 2004 Athens and Nakamura in 2008 Beijing.

壇上でスピーチされている方は萩原健吉先生。情報処理の先生なので私は直接教えてもらってないんですが、陸上部の顧問で、アテネと北京オリンピック女子マラソンに出場した坂本直子選手と中村友梨香選手を育成した人ということで一躍有名人になっちゃいました。

They were good old friends of mine. I talked with a lot of classmates seen first in 21 years. Some looked almost the same as what they had been when high school students and others looked quite different. The same went with the women who had been schoolgirls. One thing I could say was that many of the ladies who were still attractive-looking didn’t look happy with their lives. For example, some of such women divorced with their children. In many cases, those who were happy with their lives looked old 🙂
We had a perfect time with it. After the party, some of them went out to a restaurant and izakaya until midnight. I didn’t do it because I had to take a returning plane in the evening that day.
I’ve got a set for this in Flickr.

なつかしい友人たちです。

そのほかにもいろんな人と会って話しましたが、全然変わってない奴、すっかり変わった奴、いろいろでした。女性陣もしかり。すっかり「関西のおばちゃん」になっちゃったのもいれば、まだまだ今でもいけそうな人も。一つ言えるのは、まだまだいけるように見える人は独身か、はたまた子連れで離婚してたりあんまり幸せそうじゃないようでした。家庭に恵まれて幸せそうな人はだいたい老けてましたな。
ともあれ久しぶりになつかしい面々と楽しい時を過ごしました。このあとは真夜中まで８次会までやったそうですが私は夜の飛行機があったので１次会だけで失礼しました。

Ｆｌｉｃｋｒのセットはこちらです。

おまけ：偶然いた宝塚音楽学校の生徒さんをパチリ。同じホテルでなんかのパーティだったようですが、日頃から訓練されているのかキビキビ整然と動いてて、「ありがとうございましたっ！」とよく通る声で一斉に挨拶する姿がまぶしかったです。