{"id":2367,"date":"2011-10-24T18:39:21","date_gmt":"2011-10-24T23:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=2367"},"modified":"2011-11-04T23:24:07","modified_gmt":"2011-11-05T04:24:07","slug":"former-classmate-makes-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=2367","title":{"rendered":"Former Classmate Makes Good"},"content":{"rendered":"

My high school class just had its 40th anniversary reunion.<\/a> I didn’t go; I didn’t want to shell out $80 or whatever to spend an evening with a group of strangers. Well, they’re not totally strangers, although I did not stay in touch with anyone from my high school class. I can’t say that I remember talking with anyone from my class in the past 35 years, even though I only live 7 or 8 miles from the old town, and I still go there quite frequently (since my brother still lives there). <\/p>\n

There are people from my class that I would have enjoyed speaking with. But for the most part, high school was not the place where I had my best times with others. Senior year wasn’t so bad, but the first three years were pretty rough; bullying back then was still considered a form of performance art. And I participated in a lot of command performances. After I got the “save the date” letter from the reunion committee last year, I honestly thought about going. But the memories were more bitter than sweet. So I took a pass on it.<\/p>\n

And hey, why do I need to spend $80 to find out what happened to whom when there’s Facebook? I’m still holding out from joining “The Social Network” (just like I’m holding out from using supermarket loyalty cards; it’s my tiny little bit of James Dean and Jack Kerouac coming through). But the reunion “Facey” site is open to all, so I’ve been lurking quite merrily over the past few months, surreptitiously catching up with quite a few of my former classmates. <\/p>\n

Not a heck of a lot of surprises there. Our classes’ biggest claim to fame was a tragic figure who died young, i.e. basketball burn-out Les Cason<\/a> (see also my 2009 blog about him<\/a>). But there is one surprise “come from behind” figure, someone I never would have guessed to become a ‘mover and shaker’. His name is Bruce Coppa, and he was recently appointed<\/a> by newly elected (2010) Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie as his Chief of Staff. <\/p>\n

Wow, little Bruce really made it in the Democratic political world! He has also been a successful businessman; you can watch him on YouTube<\/a> giving other small business owners inspiration and advice (but you have to wait a few minutes until he gets to speak). I must say, that’s not the Bruce Coppa I remember! With his gray hair and serious face, he now knows how to talk his way into a leadership role, looking confident, spewing all kinds of interesting facts, showing that he’s on top of the world situation. <\/p>\n

By contrast, the Bruce I knew (in passing) was “an individualist”, as the 1971 ERHS yearbook says. He didn’t even care enough to show up for his yearbook photo; there is a blank oval over his entry on page 41, and I can’t find any photographic trace of him anywhere else in the book. Like myself, he wasn’t very involved; swim team for 3 years, that’s it (versus my one year on the track team and one year with math league). I remember Bruce Coppa for one thing: in senior year, he told someone that I remind him of James Stewart, and so “Stewie” became my nickname until graduation. <\/p>\n

(I’m not sure if I like that one better or worse than the nickname the detectives at work recently gave me: “the hammer”; but then again, the guy who thought that one up, Joe S., also has a claim to fame: he grew up in North Newark with Frankie Valli, yes the real Frankie Valli . . .)<\/p>\n

So it’s a bit of a surprise to see Mr. Coppa today in Hawaii as a successful businessman and political operator. But it’s a nice surprise, actually. I wish Bruce a hearty “aloha” (and I wouldn’t have seen him at the reunion even had I gone, as the new appointment kept him on the island). He certainly has his work cut out for him, given that Governor Abercrombie wound up the least-popular governor<\/a> in a recent state-by-state survey (maybe it was his proposed soda tax? people still love their soda). <\/p>\n

Hey, perhaps I should remind Bruce once again of Jimmy Stewart, specifically regarding his role in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington<\/a>. Stewart \/ Smith was also very unpopular as a fictional politician, but was vindicated in the end! Maybe Bruce can pull off another “Stewie” for the old Gov.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My high school class just had its 40th anniversary reunion. I didn’t go; I didn’t want to shell out $80 or whatever to spend an evening with a group of strangers. Well, they’re not totally strangers, although I did not stay in touch with anyone from my high school class. I can’t say that I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2367"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2398,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367\/revisions\/2398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}