Reuniting

My wife and I had our 20-year high school reunions this past weekend. We went to different high schools here in California, and twenty years later, our reunions landed on the same night. What are the odds?

After some debate, we decided the only thing to do was to go “stag” to our respective events. No sense in one of us missing out on their walk down memory lane. I was very disappointed by this, because I was really looking forward to showing her off to my classmates. When you marry up, you really want to tell the world. Plus, many of my former classmates would need living proof that I was actually married, not just another one of my tall tales.

About five minutes into the evening, I decided we had made the right decision after all, because as I found out, at a reunion you do a lot of explaining. Whenever two graduates reunited, after the “So great to see you’s,” the spouses were introduced. After the spouses were introduced, the explanations were made. “Bill and I played soccer together. We also had calculus together, and he used to cheat off me constantly. Ha, ha.”

Once you were through the explanations, you could move on to the “What are you doing now’s,” and the “Where do you live’s.”

If you were attending the event stag, however, you could skip the explanation portion of the conversation. That turned out to be a really good thing for me, because apparently, my brain didn’t fully engage and start paying attention until about age 30.

Twenty years later, my memory of high school events seems to account for about 45 minutes of the four year period. I don’t know what to attribute that to, but it’s all just one long blur.

Many of the names and faces were stored in the recesses of my brain, but the specific events that we all shared are gone forever.

If I had brought my wife, much of my evening would have gone like this:
“Honey, this is Bill. Bill, this is my wife, Sandy.”
“Honey, Bill and I… went to high school together.”
“Thanks for the update, moron.”

I think I dodged a bullet, there.

Seeing and hearing about what everyone was doing now was great fun. I am proud to report that we, the class of 90, are doing our fair share of producing offspring. The vast majority of classmates I caught up with had at least one or two children. And after adding twenty years and having kids, I was very impressed with how well the ladies of my graduating class were aging. They were in great shape and better looking than the day we matriculated. (Had a few of you looking for a dictionary just now, didn’t I?)

The men of my graduating class, for the most part, had slightly inflated. Nothing drastic, just an ever-so-slight increase in bulk density. (And, in more than a few cases, including mine, a not-so-slight loss of hair). I attribute the bulking up of my male classmates to the high quality women we all seem to have landed. It’s no surprise that we are a well-fed and well-cared for group after meeting many of the lovely and talented ladies my cohorts somehow talked into marriage. Knowing most of these guys in high school, I’m not sure how we did it, but we all really hit the ball out of the park in the wife department! Nice work, men!

Now, don’t get me wrong about the quality of our crew. We have our share of talented individuals, both male and female, from the Davis High School Class of 1990. We have teachers, doctors, firefighters, lawyers, computer geniuses, ministers, healers, Hollywood screen writers, coaches, TV and newspaper reporters, business owners, photographers, bodybuilders, entrepreneurs, performing artists, NFL football veterans, professors, big-time graphic artists, a famous DJ, an Air Force Colonel, and even a couple of children’s book authors!

Not to mention a whole lot of parents who are raising a whole lot of beautiful children.

It was a wonderful night. There is something magical about a high school reunion that I think stems from the fact that we were all together at what was effectively the start of our lives as adults. We all crossed the starting line at the same time, and ran out into the world, full steam ahead. A group of fearless 18-year-olds that thought they knew everything, hell-bent to take on the future. For one night, twenty years and a lot of miles later, many of us made it back to that starting line to compare notes on what we found out there. Turns out we didn’t know much of anything back then.

We had a few who didn’t make it too far past the starting line, and a few who have passed away, whom we miss terribly. But, all in all, the Class of 1990 is doing just fine. I am proud to report that I graduated with some excellent people.

Thanks, DHS Class of 90! Not only for a fun evening, but for a proud association.

See you soon,
-Smidge


Copyright © 2010 Marc Schmatjen


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