Class Reunion

This is hard for me to believe, that I have been out of high school for this long.

Reality check: time again for another class reunion. I drove nearly 800 miles two days ago to come to this event held every five years. I have to say this one was a lot more fun than the last one.

I went with my best friend (since fourth grade) over to the American Legion Hall in my hometown this morning to help out with the decorations. I wasn't in on the main part of the planning, because I don't live in town, and nobody asked me. So I contented myself with putting the cheesy white plastic tableclothes out and placing the purple crepe paper circles in the center, topped with fake greenery, white-painted tuna cans that held purple votive candles, crowned with a hurricane lantern globe. (Actually, it looked better than it sounds. And once they started serving the alcohol, no one cared anyway.) Another old school chum helped me put twisted purple and white crepe paper streamers up on the walls, topped with purple cardboard stars. R and I were reprimanded by the others for giggling over in the corner where he and I were finishing up the decor. We were just laughing at overhearing one of the other classmates talking about her ex bringing some girl half his age to the party later tonight, and another saying that she was dating someone seventeen years younger than she. Someone discovered that we needed to go pick up balloon bouquets in a nearby town, and he and I volunteered to drive over to get them.

The last time I saw R was at the last reunion five years ago, and before that, I had not seen him since high school. He is a tall, slender, handsome guy with the type of dimples that just are wonderful. We were not good friends in school, but had a lot of classes together over the years. In fact, in the first grade, I pushed him off the ladder of the slide when he tried to cut in front of me. He fell, bit either his tongue or his lip, I forget which, and ran in crying to the teacher. Since there was a bit of blood involved, I got spanked and had to sit facing the corner of the room. The big traumatic moment of my first school year. I remember it well. R did not. We had an excellent laugh over it, though.

R has done quite well for himself. He drives a Cadillac, which he claims is because he likes a large back seat in which to hang his clothes when he travels, as he hates to pack. Sure enough, his back seat had all these neatly pressed shirts and trousers all lined up on the rod. (I haven't ironed that much since I left the Navy.) I am certain that these did not come from the laundry this way. There were no cleaners' bags on any of them. His car was spotless, of course. A couple of things that I found quite funny, however were the teddy bear dressed in black biker garb on the front console, and the sparkly star shaped fairy wand tucked into the headliner by the passenger door. I asked if there was a story behind these objects and he just smiled and winked at me. "Yes." But since he said no more about them, I am drawing my own conclusions, which I have thought since back in school.

We went in the party store to discover that the order was for more balloons than even his big Caddy could hold, so we brought back all we could and called for reinforcements to bring the others. We delivered them to the Legion Hall, then went in search of a frame for the memorial table. (Our class has lost over a dozen members already.) That took us to Walmart, where I decided to look for a purple tshirt to wear to the party. All they had were plain ones, as the clerk said that the school logo shirts sell out very fast. We found a decent, respectable frame for the memorial list and headed out.

Driving through town, I spotted a shop that sold school spirit gear, and we made a dash into there. Excellent, they had one my size and much to my surprise, R bought it for me. I was extremely grateful, because this whole trip has been on such a shoestring budget that I wasn't quite sure if I would have enough to buy gas for the trip home. It was such a sweet gesture. He said for me to just remember what a fun time we had today every time I wear it. Believe me, I will.

The reunion itself was a lot of fun. R and I staked out a table towards the back, and he had brought in a nice bottle of red wine. Everyone mingled before dinner, and I saw a couple of people that I seriously did not recognise, and several people obviously did not recognise me until they read my name tag. One person flatly told me that she didn't remember me at all. Pfffft.

There are always a couple of people that haven't changed hardly at all. But most of the women are fat, and a lot of the men are bald, or headed that way. I could care less. One person showed up that was the major talk of the party, mainly because she has had so much work done that she doesn't resemble herself anymore. Extreme makeover deluxe. Looked like she got her money's worth.

There is one fellow, D, who claims that I am the reason he made it through high school. He says that he managed to copy my test answers over my shoulder. He even says he was so intent about copying me once that he looked down and had put my name on his paper. We sat and laughed about goofy shit we all had done in school, and it was really a blast from the past.

One thing I have to agree with R about, however. The people who were assholes in high school are STILL assholes. So we sat back and christened one table of the former "in crowd" as the asshole table. They do tend to run in packs.

I hope to see most of these people back again in five more years. Probably at the American Legion Hall, probably over a good barbeque dinner and a candle stuck in a tuna can.