~ Class Reunion Advice ~

Here we are in early summer, and committee meetings are going on fast and furious all over the South as folks rush to get plans in order for their big high school reunions. Thank goodness for the hard-working organizers who spend long hours designing an event that will be fun for all. They deserve every plaque we give them. 

Reunions are great, but nothing compares with the fantasies we conjure prior to this Hug Fest. 

In our wildest dreams, don’t we wish we could walk into the Big Reunion looking like a million dollars? Don’t we wish every person we ever had a crush on (and who never asked us out) would rush to our side, drooling and acting a fool for our attention? We like to imagine the stupes are mentally kicking themselves you-know-where and thinking, “I must have been nuts not to date her/him!” 

I’m not going to divulge my source, but this very thing happened at a local high school reunion several years ago. The guy who told me about it described how a classmate, painfully shy and a touch on the pudgy side during their school days, returned to their reunion looking as if she’d just stepped from the pages of Vogue. Sophisticated. Svelte. Swoon stuff. 

Nobody recognized her. 

The class members were all abuzz. “Who is that?” 

Well, after they all donned nametags, attendees discovered the pretty lady’s identity, and much exclamation swirled within tight circles of envious women and admiring men. Several of the guys (single, I’m sure) began to flirt, but our smashing heroine stopped them cold with a classic line: “Where were you back in high school, buddy?” 

Hearing this tale, the poet in me was inspired mightily. 

Thus, using the perspective of the pal who told me the story, I wrote the following verse and recommend the lesson to all of us, young and old. 

___________________________


BIG REUNION 

One day I got a letter from an old classmate 
saying: “Class Reunion! Remember this date.
We’re gonna get together at our dear high school 
to dance and talk and act a fool. 
Years have passed and we’ll really have fun 
seeing what damage all those years have done. 
Lose a little weight and dye your hair, 
and no excuses. Y’all all be there
at the big reunion." 

Now, my mind started working: Were the gals still purty?
Would they flirt like crazy and dance a little dirty?
When I come through the door will they all still swoon?
Will I even have a break for the Little Boys’ Room?
Will they tell me, “The years have been good to you,”
and cuddle up close and squeeze me? Oooh!
Big Reunion! Gonna have a little fun.
Big Reunion! And I’m still top gun. 

So I lost ten pounds eating Lean Cuisine,
decided to splurge on a limousine,
put a diamond on my finger, bigger than life – 
kinda sentimental (from my last ex-wife). 
Arrived a minute late so I’d look real chic,
been working on my entrance for, I guess, a solid week.
First woman I saw knocked me on my rear.
My brain said, “Son, I’m so glad you’re here
at the big reunion!" 

I moved over closer to this knock-out dame,
and said, “Hey, Sugar, do I know your name?”
That good-looking woman put me in my place
when she looked me in the eye and laughed in my face.
“Where were you back in high school, buddy,
when I didn’t have a figure and my face was kinda muddy?
I never had a boyfriend and I never had a date.
Sorry, big guy, but you’re years too late
at this big reunion." 

I learned my lesson, you fellows in school. 
Look a little deeper ‘less you wanta be a fool.
There’s some sweet young gals who stay a little hid, 
so give ‘em a call – you’ll be glad you did . . . 
at the big reunion!

_______________________________

 You know you're getting old when...

OLD IS WHEN...

• your sweetie says, "Let's go upstairs and make love," and you answer, "Honey, I can't do both!" 
• your friends compliment you on your new alligator shoes and you're barefoot. 
• going bra-less pulls all the wrinkles out of your face. 
• You don't care where your spouse goes, just as long as you don't have to go along. 
• you are cautioned to slow down by the doctor instead of by the police. 
• "getting a little action" means I don't need to take any fiber today. 
• "getting lucky" means you find your car in the parking lot. 
• an "all nighter" means not getting up to pee! 

 

 ______________________________________________________________

  

 Prairie High School Reunion

 

It’s about a three-hour drive to my high school reunion — from Calgary straight up Highway 2 to Edmonton. It’s all rolling prairie meets big blue sky, but Edmonton starts about half an hour sooner than it used to. The fields at the edge of town where we’d drink warm beer, puke and squat up against trees to pee are covered with houses and strip malls. 

 

My uniform is the same as in the bush party days: boots, T-shirts and jeans. They call them skinny jeans now, and they start at my Cesarean scar. The first time around, we called them stovepipes and you didn’t have to wear them with long shirts to prevent people from seeing your bum when you sat down.

I still like to listen to The Who’s Quadrophenia on road trips. It’s on my iPod, not a cassette, and I have to massage my aging hamstring on long drives so my ass doesn’t cramp up.

I graduated in 1979. I don’t know why we’re having a 30th reunion; we didn't do a 25th. Our last reunion was a 15th, the year most of us turned "mid-thirties".

At this gathering, we’re pushing 50 and while there are fewer people, there seem to be just as many exclamations of “Oh, wow, you look exactly the same!” We don’t, of course. Except one woman, whose hair has not changed since 1976.

The skinny boys with mullets are now men with paunches. A couple of women have gained a lot of weight. One has lost it, having long ago traded her Export “A”s for triathlons. Another old friend has a suspiciously smooth forehead. She smiles as she shows me where the needles go.

Romantic memories

I don’t think anything could help with the deep canyon between my brows. It started forming the night I snuck out of my friend’s wedding rehearsal to go for a smoke. I was tiptoeing between the pews, tripped on a kneeler and smacked my head on the metal bracket. Blood poured down my face and the bride’s mother screamed.

The bride’s older brother — whom I was hopelessly in love with — helped me and my miniskirt step up into his giant truck while I held a wad of bloody toilet paper to my head. It. Was. So. Romantic. He took me to the hospital so I could get four stitches and a pretty white butterfly bandage overtop. (The next day, one particularly observant wedding guest complained to the bride: “Your bridesmaid isn’t doing a very good job of hiding that zit.”)

The bride and her groom are at the reunion and remind me they’ve been married 22 years. I remind them of my forehead. It used to be an obvious scar, a crooked white line between my eyebrows. Now it’s a big, deep wrinkle.

There are lots of wrinkles, greying hair and extra pounds at the reunion, but I think we’d all recognize one another anywhere. Except for the balding guy with glasses. He asks about my brother, and I smile and chat back and have absolutely no idea who he is. Maybe it’s his hairline or lack thereof, maybe it’s perimenopause or maybe it’s the dope I smoked 28 years ago.

There’s no dope smoking anymore. If there were, I might enjoy more the loud thumpa-thumpa electronica blaring in the background. But I’m tired and hoarse and my hamstring hurts. Around midnight, I swap some business cards, swear I’ll keep in touch and limp into a cab. It’s a different kind of curfew these days.

This article originally appeared in the April 2009 issue of More

_______________________________

 

_______________________________

  

  _______________________________

 

 

_______________________________ 

 

_______________________________

 

 _______________________________