Friday, August 22, 2008

Where did the twenty years go?


It’s hard to know just what to expect when attending your 20-year high school reunion. When my class of ‘88 gathered at a golf course on Saturday, I expected there to be a few familiar faces, plus a few unfamiliar ones, all rolled up in the warm blanket of nostalgia. I expected there to be a few more chins than there were 20 years ago, a few more foreheads showing, and a few more stories to share amongst old friends. What I didn’t expect was how good everyone else looked. It appears ugly people don’t go to class reunions. It takes a certain measure of self esteem to brush what’s left of your graying hair, suck in your expanding belly, and make an appearance at a reunion. Graduates with no job, no teeth and no prospects can’t be bothered, which is too bad, because they are the interesting ones. Not everyone golfed, but just about everyone made a trip or ten to the bar, where regular reunions with old friends Johnny Walker and Captain Morgan helped ease any old nerves and bridge those gaps in the conversation that two decades of separation can create. By the time supper was ready, we were all one big happy family. Many had families of their own, such as a guy named Mark who said in the yearbook he was going to become a dirt farmer. When he arrived with a newborn baby in tow, he laughed and shrugged his shoulders and said that at least he’d “had 38 good years.” A guy named Ron, who said his probable fate would be a career at the dump, almost won the baby lottery for his clutch of four children. The prize winner was a girl named Jennifer, whose yearbook predicted a life of nursing, but said nothing about raising a family of five children. There were a number of happy couples in attendance; those high school sweethearts who are still married to each other and living the fairy tale, and those who have been married so long they’ve lost count of the years. There were also those unfortunate few who were once married, but aren’t anymore. A girl named Ruth, whose yearbook listed “success” as her future plans and “becoming a wayward nun” as her probable fate, actually married a man, divorced him, and then married him a second time. The reunion also featured those sensible graduates who, for whatever reason, decided marriage and children and a white picket fence just isn’t for them. Jeff, whose future plans were to open a chain of restaurants, spends his days running a restaurant. Chris, who said all he wanted to do was run away with a rock and roll band, actually played drums in a band, and now tries not to make spelleng mistakes each week in a newspapur. Another Jeff had plans to be a teacher and became one, and the guy who was nicknamed Stoner is also a teacher. I wonder if his students know his old name, or that his pet peeve was “the only sleep you get all night is at the wheel.” In the end, it was a rare treat to see so many old faces in one place, hearing about where life has taken them, and the twists and turns that got them there—and that life, like school, is more about the journey than the destination.

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