Leftover Ink: Class Reunion, Part I

 As it turned out, the police showed up and I don’t have an alibi completely squared away. Whatever you do, don’t tell Sheriff Simpson. Granted, our reunion was right over the county line, I believe that he’d still lock me up in a New York minute. Part of me still thinks that the Sheriff's Office is still bitter at us over Senior Skip Day (also raided by the police) and the walk-out. 

With that in mind, I’ll stick to first names only. If the heat gets bad, our next reunion may have to be in a country without an extradition agreement.

Reunions are tricky things. It’s hard to recapture a moment in time—even harder to remember all of the people who made your teen years what they were. Even so, it always amazes me when I run into friends from college who didn’t even consider returning for their own reunions.

The nostalgia factor alone is worth the price of admission—and 20 years later, it’s much easier to afford. When one considers the rate of inflation, I’m fairly certain that I paid less than I did to go to my senior prom. Of course, that was without the cash bar.

I’m much less of a drinker than I was as a younger man, but I’m fairly certain that I paid for our bartender to attend the college of his choice. Somewhat out of drinking shape, Sunday morning was a long, painful experience—although one I wouldn’t trade for anything.

There’s a certain level of nervousness that accompanies arriving at the reunion. Will I remember people? Will we have anything in common? Will the cliques and arbitrary groupings that encapsulate every high school (and for which I’m no less guilty than anyone) still be in place 20 years later?

The biggest question of course is, do we all still have anything in common?

Having met up with 3 other survivors of the Shepherd's Pie at Park View, we arrived together without a single denim jacket or intentionally-ripped pair of jeans among us. Perhaps ’89 was just a little too far away.

Together with Nicole, who apparently I just missed while I was covering this year’s RPV Convention. It was me, Michele (on ‘L’ who still refers to me as pond scum, but only with love) and Frank (who managed to room with me in college without resorting to violence). Then we got to the hotel—our unfortunate hosts and—started reconnecting with people even before we reached the lobby.

Outside we ran into Jen (who looks exactly the same) and Lisa (who is still so much cooler than I am). Brian (who was no where near this much the life of the party back in the day) came up behind us on the way in—where we walked into a roomful of friends.

For many of us, high school might not have been the best part of our lives, but it was the time when we first started becoming the people we really were. There was something extraordinarily interesting in being in a room full of the people who were there for that.

To be continued…

—John L. Geddie