*Click here for a list and analysis of all six reunions.
*Click here to see photos.
Below are graphics from past reunions and rambling notes about the reunions and observations about the phenomenon or sometimes lack there of.
(2008) Reunion 6 is over! After a year break and all the the ups and downs, LRYers came back together in the most seamless reunion yet.
Picking the right place in sunny Palo Alto proved to be the only way to go.
Over 20 people, 13 hardcore LRYers and their loved ones. Almost everyone was there for most of the time. Four first timers.
We also had good turn-outs for dinner Friday and Saturday nights. However, Sunday brunch was a skelton crew.
Jeff Eby and I are the only ones to have been to five reunions. Quite a few people have been to three or four. No one has been to all six.
REUNIONs AT A GLANCE
1) 2002: In park in Sacramento, big picnic Saturday, house parties Friday and Saturday nights, and two morning brunches. Over 50 people, spouses, kids of about 25 regular LRYers.
2) 2003: Picnic in Golden Gate Park. Smaller turnout than first year, but sunny and relaxing. Several of us shacked up for the weekend and had brunches plus dinner in restaurants Friday, Saturday and Sunday. (Eliot Petrocchi picked up the tab for seven or us at Olive Garden.)
3) 2004: Private house party in Hayward. Boring Friday night to Saturday afternoon as some people couldn’t make it at the last minute and others kept calling to see who was there. But Saturday night felt just like a conference as people kept showing up. Lots of brief drop-bys, but about
14 LRYers made it. Good Sunday brunch.
4) 2005: Picnic in Golden Gate Park again. This time it was cold and overcast, but by far the best reunion yet. 21 LRYers total, no drop-bys. 90 percent of them were there most of the time. From 1PM in the park to 1AM in the near-by restaurant. No one wanted to leave. Sunday brunch on the wharf with 10 LRYers.
5) 2006: Picnic in Golden Gate Park yet again. Webmaster couldn’t make it, but heard it was even colder. Smaller turnout, could be because of lack of promotion, bad weather and the date change or all three. But still a worthwhile effort.
(We did not have a reunion in 2007.)
6) 2008. After a year break and all the the ups and downs, LRYers came back together in the most seamless reunion yet. Picking the right place in sunny Palo Alto proved to be the only way to go.
Over 20 people, 13 hardcore LRYers and their loved ones. Almost everyone was there for most of the time. Four first timers.
We also had good turn-outs for dinner Friday and Saturday nights. However, Sunday brunch was a skelton crew.
Jeff Eby and I are the only ones to have been to five reunions, no one has been to all six.
7) Unfortunately a reunion in 2009 did not happen. Several people told us they had scheduling conflicts but wanted to go, as timing has always been a major factor in reunion success. (Not to mention past conference success.) While quite a few LRYers simply showed no interest in even getting back to us, (even through Facebook) which is surprising considering how much interest there was the year before. But interest in reunions has always burned hot and cold, even for hardcore folks like me. We know there will be boom and busts in the future.
There is a reason high school class reunions are only every five years. However, my high school alumni has had very successful all-class reunion events at least once a year for over 10 years. I got the inspiration for our first reunion eight years ago from my high school alumni events success and never was worried about how small reunions could be. There are plenty of LRYers not just staying in constant contact, but hanging out regularly (and often having intimate relationships,) because they connected at one of the six reunions. It would be wasteful to have only had two reunions over the last eight years just because interest and attendance is unpredictable.
Remember how we would rate conferences? I’d forgotten how much we used to compare them before during and after as they were unpredictable too. In 10 years as we retire we hope to have reunions almost monthly like conferences.
I realize how silly this is because after all so many of us will be living in an LRY Retirement Village and we will be hanging out and doing projects almost daily. Though some of us will only visit now and then or use the place as a weekend retreat.
REUNION ANALYSIS:
In early 2002 our goal was to see how many LRYers we could bring back together. (A number of LRYers had already remained in touch.) LRY had a large positive emotional impact on most of our lives. But we had no grand expectations, the goal then and now was to simply have fun.
Well, it has been an amazing experience and social experiment. Several friendships have genuinely been renewed for years now, including half a dozen rekindled romances with at least three lasting at least three years. A surprising amount of LRYers have hooked up and done projects together.
What’s equally surprising is how many long time hardcore LRYers aren’t interested in reunions. While others simply can’t make up their minds if they care or not.
A number of us left LRY kicking and screaming, at age 20 or even 21. Some teenagers just dropped by one conference never to return, (sometimes even if they got lucky.)
Others were regulars who dropped out at 15 or 16 as LRY continued near by them at full steam. Ironically some of these same people have overly embraced reunions.
LRYers are often lumped together, but the fact is whether you’re a teenager in the ‘70s or middle aged, LRY has always meant different things to different people. Some LRYers came only to have fun, sing, dance and play music. Some came as couples in long term romances, often having met their mate in LRY.
The people having the most sleeping bag hanky-panky didn’t need a conference or LRY to meet people attracted to them.
Some came only for the drugs and the hope of maybe having sex. The drugs ended up having long term negative effects and some are still hoping for the sex part after over 30 years.
Busy people make an effort to go to reunions to see the LRYers they were closest to. Sure we had overlapping cliques; we held hands in large circles and always had a spirit of community. But the fact is
LRY was mostly about close friendship. Most serious LRYers continued to go to conferences to hang out with friends and sometimes make new ones.
It turns out that through these reunions and subsequent get-togethers you can actually become close friends with an LRY you didn’t know well back in the day. But no one can remain close with all the friends they’ve had over the years.
Reunions have been well-attended considering how relatively few long time conferences goers there were. Nothing wrong with just dropping by a conference or dropping out of LRY, it wasn’t everyone’s bag.
Though conferences may have sometimes had 70-100 teenagers show up, there were probably not much more than 50 people who went to over half of them. And far less than that were hardcore LRYers who went to most conferences ’74 to ’76.
Example: All three week-long Mendocino conferences were relatively small. Most of the committed LRYers from 1974 stayed committed through 1976 or 1977. Graduating high school didn’t stop us as the age of the last Mendocino conferences-goer was 19 or 20.
About 50 long-time conference-going LRYers have been to at least one reunion. Though never half that all at once.
Over a dozen LRYers have been to at least three reunions, a few less have been to four. Two have been to five and no one has been to all six.
Choosing any date for a reunion is a gamble because people are busy and often don’t know if they can make it till the last minute. And of course often most LRYers only want to go if their closets LRY friends go. Every year there are lots of emails from people wishing they weren’t busy that day.
Interest in reunions often runs hot and cold, feast or famine. Several LRYers have show up at a reunion and it dramatically changes their lives, others have been disappointed when it didn’t. I say show up and have food with old friends and quit stressing.
Notes after reunion 2005:
Reunion 2005 is over! Verdict: Anyone who still thinks reunions can't work out can kiss my A$$!
Thanks to better planning, the fourth annual reunion was by
far the most successful. (Even though as always I got bitched at by a couple LRY users.) From 1PM in the park to about 1AM in the restaurant, 90 percent of the people were together 90 percent of the time and most of us didn't want it to end.
If conferences were hardly ever boring, there's no reason reunions should be. After all the life experience we have.
In early adulthood you simply can not maintain friendships with everyone you were close to as a teenager. (Particularly with friends in so many different cities.) But in middle age you may often find you have the time and resources to let a few people back in.
If you really truly care about someone when you are a teenager (or any age) than you should be able to meet them 30 years later and care about them just as much.
Over the last 3 and a half years, I can't tell you how many thankful LRYers have told me how surprised and delighted they are about meeting LRY friends and picking right back up on conversations as if three decades hadn't past.
I can tell you how many LRYers have been selfish flakes concerning reunions, but I won't. It is a very small but powerful number. So much so that I was not planning to have a reunion this year.
Special thanks to David Lewis (and his family) for doing a diving catch and saving the reunion. If it were not for David, then later a couple more LRY heroes who stepped up to the plate, there would not have been 20 LRYers hanging out like teenagers for 12 straight hours and not wanting to go home.
We had 21 LRYers total this year, nine first-timers. Only two of those didn't make it to the park. About 10 of us had a wonderful Sunday brunch on the wharf. Five of us stayed and walked around the wharf for several more hours.
But yes, we understand, some people are busier than ever and reunions are not for everybody.
Written after first reunion:
Our first reunion weekend in 2002 was an overwhelming success! Far more people showed up and stayed longer than we'd expected.
Everyone showered the reunion planners with gratitude. At times that warm and fuzzy conference atmosphere feeling was in the air. We learned a lot about
planning future reunions. Corny as it all sounds, old relationships were re-established, new ones began etc.
Go to the "PHOTOS" link on the main page to see shots of a bunch of middle-aged people who for one brief weekend went back to the mid-1970s.
Us planners are delighted the small intimate atmosphere was achieved. There are still plenty of mid-70s LRYers who would have showed up if they'd known and others who expressed regret for not
being able to make it this time.
Although this year's reunion is open to everyone, we truly feel the success of the reunion and the reason so many people made sacrifices to show-up was because we kept it simple and focused on regular conference-goers from such a narrow time period.
Thank you to those who helped plan last year's event. Special thanks to Dave Chadd, Mickey Phrog and John Alexander.
(Here's who showed up. Many of these people brought along loved-ones, who no longer say "what was LRY?")
Please let me know who I left out.
Stephanie Rumrill-McBrayer
Ulysses Torassa
James Finley
Eliot Petrocchi
Michael Johnson
Libby (Lianne) Shafer
Eden Heustis
Meredith Bauman-Gross
Mary Purcell-Miramontes
Mike Purcell
Jane Weirick
Mickey Phrog
John Alexander
Dave Chadd
Paul Espinoza
Carlos Espinosa
Eli Glickman
Cathy(now Clio) Lee
Paul Stewart
Geof Nash
Adam Miller
Annelelise Jade Bazar
Christe Nordquist-Welch
Dwight Bradish
Tom and Lynne Anderson
Terri Freeman
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