40th High School Reunion Beckons: My Attendance Record Remains Perfect
Party Like It’s 1967
Apparently, I’ve been ensnared by a renegade time-space vortex - or perhaps caught up in a CIA conspiracy.
How else to explain my receipt of an invitation to attend a 40th High School Reunion?1 Clearly, I’m too young to be celebrating the 40th reunion of anything other than perhaps my grandparents’ wedding anniversary. Certainly my own high school graduation occurred more recently. Yet, the names of other invitees are familiar. “1967″ rings a bell of some sort. Even the school building looks like a place I’ve been before.
It’s all very odd.
I am not well acquainted with reunions. I have, in fact, a proud tradition of never having attended any of my high school, college, or med school reunions. Research by the Chair of Psychiatry during my residency made a convincing case that, for high school reunions at least, returning students, regardless of what they had or had not accomplished since graduation, reverted to whatever role they played when they were in school. If I want to revert to being miserable in a former environment, I always have the option of tracking down my first wife.
Yet, this record was placed in jeopardy by the skill seductive skills of one Tiny B, pictured in the #2 slot of Midweek Photo Quiz.
It has proven extraordinarily difficult to say “no” to Tiny - although God knows the only chances I’ve ever had to turn her down have been these invitations to visit my hometown.
Were it not for a conflict with the dates for our already scheduled annual family vacation, I might well be enroute to the Ozarks.
Two reunion topics deserve special attention.
The Cliques
Reunions are infamous for the reformation of cliques. And, my high school had its share of cliques; of course, when the entire population of ones high school population, including students, teachers, administration, janitors, and bus drivers, would fit comfortably in most airliners, that school’s share of cliques is relatively low.
In such circumstances, consolidation of clique categories is necessary. Rather than freaks & geeks, jocks, stoners, head-bangers, gangsters, drama queens, drag queens, Goths, etc., we had FFA (Future Farmers of America) guys and non-FFA guys (both of us).
Besides, enforcing clique boundaries and membership is a bitch when ones mother persists in inviting non-cliquers to Sunday dinner.
Who Wants Whom
The high points of my high school dating experience consist of my great good luck in escorting especially attractive girls from another school to prom both my Junior and Senior years. That the prom was the single date I had with each of these individuals is unimportant.
Otherwise, high school dating was, in my case, an oxymoron. Were I to attend the reunion, however I suspect I would find that all those women who rejected me when we were classmates, preferring guys who were more handsome, better athletes, or just cooler, now, would - well, do exactly the same thing.
In response, I’ll point out that now, thanks to Anjani, I’m no longer being turned down for dates by high school girls who favor Harold or Mike (or Bruce or Tom or …).
Now, I’m being turned down for a ménage à trois or more by a gorgeous vocalist who decides to stick with Leonard Cohen.
Yep, I’ve made it big.
Footnotes
- Class of 1967: Diamond High School; Diamond, Missouri. ~back~
