FUNNY how the school-yard can seem so big when you’re a kid.
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“I think it’s shrunk,” smiled Bill Tink, 61, looking up the grand entrance of Albury High School.
Mr Tink was back in town yesterday to attend his first high school reunion since graduating in 1970, although 44 years have passed by.
“I rarely get a chance to get back,” said Mr Tink, who has recently retired in Utah in the US after a globe-trotting career that took him to Abu Dhabi, London and Houston.
His former classmate Jenny Speth has organised all the 1970 year reunions from her home in Sydney.
She jumped at the chance to pin him down during a rare visit and get him to last night’s event.
So was he looking forward to it?
“Not at all!” he joked.
“It’s a little bit daunting, seeing people you haven’t seen in 44 years.
“There’s only two people I’ve seen in that time, so you think ‘oh, am I going to recognise anyone?’”
Mr Tink was a member on Australia’s failed bid to send a bobsled team to the 1976 Winter Olympics (the government came to its senses, he says, and canned the idea).
In Utah, he takes pride in his old home, including “Albury-Wodonga” on his name badge when volunteering at tourist traps, much to the delight of visiting Aussies.