A while back I was sent an invite from a Facebook friend to join the Patrick Henry High School 40th reunion planning page.

Forty years. Woah. Where did the time go?

I have never attended a high school reunion and for one good reason.

Where does my allegiance lie?

I had already been invited to another school’s page for an upcoming reunion. How?

For the first three years of high school, I attended Fridley Grace (now Totino Grace). My senior year, I attended Patrick Henry in Minneapolis, mostly because that school provided me the opportunity to garner enough credits to graduate without going to  dreaded summer school.

Plus, my best friend was going to PHHS and I had lots of grade school friends attending there, so it wasn’t that hard of a transition. Or so I thought.

While at Grace, I struggled academically as well as socially. I was generally kind of shy and low key and really didn’t fit in with the typical cliques you find at high school. My grades were sub-par because, well  (I’ll admit) the classes were hard and I was at that awkward age where distractions (girls) were all I could think about. 

I failed my second semester of algebra my freshman year - though I went on and passed the next year’s geometry classes. My junior year, I knew I had to fit in a math class to qualify for graduation, so I signed up for computer class thinking “I can handle that.”

Wrong.

Back then, computers were complicated. They featured the DOS system (letters and numbers) with phone dial-up features (no graphical interface on the screens). About halfway through the semester, I found myself drowning in data that was over my head, so I went to the teacher to drop out.

Bad idea.

I figured I would just find a different math class my senior year to complete my requirements. However, I found out over the summer that no matter what I did, I wouldn’t have enough credits to graduate unless I went to summer school.

AWWWWW. I couldn’t do that! Miss my whole summer of fun going to school? No way!

My best friend Mike was the one who suggested I check into Henry because they  partook in trimesters, allowing a student to carry more credits in a school year compared the Grace. Plus, there was no math requirement to graduate.

So I opted out of Grace and enrolled at Henry. I excelled at PHHS, garnering almost all A’s (for some reason, classes at PHHS were easier for me than at Grace. Did I get smarter that senior year? I don’t think so, but at the time, all I thought about was finding a way to get a diploma and moving on with my life.

So, is Henry where I consider I went to high school or is it Grace? Three years at one and one year at the other. I’m torn.

Years and years later, the consequences of that decision has me wondering — where do my loyalties lie?