Several weeks ago, I attended my 25th high school reunion. That’s Class of ’74 for those of you who had trouble in math. It was the year Henry Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record and the summer that Nixon resigned.

So we had our moments. But I’ve come to describe my class reunion, held in a Pennsylvania town far from here, as the “Reunion That Wasn’t.”

None of the people I really wanted to see showed up. Frank, my best friend in high school and later my college roommate, stayed home.

The week before, an upstairs pipe in his house broke while he was on vacation. His kitchen ceiling fell in, forcing him and his wife to spend the week in a motel room.

John, whose near-perfect SAT score bought him a four-year free ride to the University of Pittsburgh, didn’t show, either. I heard he’s some kind of “consultant,” but mostly a stay-at-home father.

Don, a good high school friend, has become pastor of a congregation in Tennessee. Another no-show. Jim’s wife is battling cancer in Michigan, so he stayed home with her and the family.

No Jeff, no Joy, no Robin, no Marty. No fun. The first classmate I spoke to that evening told me an incredible story of how she suffered a brain aneurysm soon after the birth of her daughter five years ago.

The last classmate I talked to before leaving had survived a liver transplant but lost a husband in the process.

In between, I had more normal conversations, showed photographs of my kids and made sure not to account for my last 25 years.

I learned that seven classmates had died since graduation. Rich was killed in a car wreck. I remembered in elementary school when his head got stuck between the bars of a bicycle rack.

Our former class president whispered to me that Merle had committed suicide. Someone else informed me that George had become a funeral director before dying of AIDS.

In the sixth grade, George had beaten me in the championship of a foul-shooting contest.

I heard that Ray, another old classmate, is somewhere in a Southwest prison after his murder conviction.

I drove back to North Carolina the next day in quite a somber state. When we left each other at graduation 25 years ago, we didn’t know what to expect. Life was always about tomorrow.

Reunions make you realize that life is all about today. It’s hard to return to the past, especially now when you know what the future is.

It’s no-shows, aneurysms, transplants and falling kitchen ceilings. But by the time I reached the North Carolina state line, I conceded that it’s also new families, new friends, new challenges and new expectations.