Class of '81

I went to my 25 year high school reunion on Friday and Saturday nights.

The turnout was fairly small - but then, it was pretty much a last-minute operation. I had six weeks' notice, and I don't think anyone heard about it more than three months in advance. It was kind of done on the fly. And for all that we drew probably 50-60 of the 252 people who'd graduated; a far cry from the 70% who attended the 10 year reunion and probably 60% who showed up five years ago, but it was a lot of fun.

I've always felt sorry for people who don't like going to their reunions. Of course, I realize that everyone's time in high school is different, and that no two schools, or even groups of kids, are the same. It probably helps that Jamestown is a smaller city in the middle of nowhere...

...but even with that, Jamestown's class of '81 was pretty famous for being a lot more close-knit than most. Most of us seem to enjoy most of our company. Which helps a lot.

Friday started with a mixer at a local hotel bar. Saturday was a dinner and a brief, ragged, extemporized program at the Eagles' club (followed by a giggly ramble down Jamestown's main street, grabbing a shot at each of the town's remaining downtown bars until closing time caught up with us). And after both, we did was pretty much every group of high school kids on the prairie does when they have time to kill, the urge to kill it socially, and not much else to do: we found some land and some wood, built a bonfire, and broke out the coolers full of beer. This time, of course, the land belonged to one of our classmates, and the bonfire and beer were both legal.

The fun part, of course, is that a lot of the old social circles have broken down over time. Not that Jamestown High School was out of a John Hughes movie, of course; there was a lot less such pretense, but "a lot less" still left room for some of the clicques that form whenever groups of teenagers are stuck in a building together. I never belonged to any of them - mine was the clicque of the clicqueless - so I got along with everyone equally well and nonexistantly. And nowadays it just doesn't matter, which makes reunions a lot more fun.

I had time to sneak in at least a short conversation with almost everyone there. My first observation - genetics and time have been exceedingly kind to most of the girls I graduated with. Not so much with the guys, but such is life.

The reunion ended for me at John Cave's place, with about twenty of us standing/sitting around a bonfire, nursing rather than chugging the Miller Lites and passing stories around. It was chilly, pushing 4AM, and the night sky was just starting to brighten with the first hints of dawn. And I felt the way I always feel as these things wind down; wistful, happy to see these people (there's not one person I can honestly say I wish I could have snuck away from), sad that it'll be years before I see most of them again, and with the same odd sense of wanting...

...something that is as hard to define today as it was to put into words 25 years ago. A little shred of that same feeling I had the first time I walked away from all those people on May 28, 1981; that there's a lot to do, a lot to accomplish, and just a little bit to prove. And I'd better get on it.

Who showed? That's below the fold.

I'll leave out last names; everyone who needs to know them, already does.

• Pennie. She's a high school teacher in Houston who just won a major national teaching award. She looks not an iota different from high school, where she played keyboards in the first band I ever played in (at a talent show in tenth grade); we probably talked for half an hour at the mixer. She's sent me a few emails in the last couple of years about thinking about teaching in Minnesota, especially given Gov. Pawlenty's "super-teacher" proposal; legislators, you need to get on the stick. You don't know what you're missing
• Joe B. Other than the gray hair, another guy who hasnt' changed a jot since high school. Goofy, boisterous, always there with the long-forgotten story about yourself from 25 years ago (and laughing uproariously at the stories about himself), it was hard to square the goofball with the fact that he's a retired National Guard major (who, in fact, got back from Iraq not too long ago).
• Dan - a fighter pilot today, who looks every bit the Lieutenant Colonel and sounds every bit the Fighter Jock (he has even adopted the souther accent). Dan played bass in my "real" band in high school, and my biggest regret of the evening was that neither of us brought our guitars (as we did at the 20th reunion, where we ended up playing until 5AM at...yep, the last big bonfire party). Oh, and nobody's money was any good around Dan. At Dan's behest, in fact, was history's first "pitcher of kamikazes" created).
• Janice - a girl I remember very vaguely from German club, she works at the Marshall Fields home store in Edina, where I actually met her a couple of years ago while agog with sticker shock. She's still an absolute doll.
• Jerry - probably the most changed guy of the bunch. Jerry was always a big farm kid in high school, one of those guys who in eighth grade has the physique of a wrestler; in fact, my main/only memory of him in high school is him constantly kicking my ass during the "wrestling" unit that they kept dragging us through in gym class; Jerry and I were in the same "weight class", although I was 130 pounds of 6'3, and he was 130 pounds of 5'9 haybale pitcher, so he'd fold me up like a piece of origami. He's changed; darker hair, a little more settled-looking, and a lot thoughful. In fact, I talked with him more in half an hour at the bonfire than I had in four years of high school (where I think my total exchange was "you pinned me, motherf****er, let me up").
• Jackie - Another of the girls who's never changed. Jackie was/is mistakeable for a surfer girl; blonde, hilarious in a kind of spur of the moment way, and has always been a total hoot. She also just retired as a lieutenant-commander in the Navy Reserve, after years of being a nurse in both civilian and navy life. She and her radiologist husband, she says, have also just moved to the Twin Cities, and in fact live about a mile from where I work. The metro-area reunions just got a lot better!
• Jim E. - Another guy I don't think I talked with much after sixth grade, Jim has done well for himself, being (reportedly) a big wheel at the company that owns/builds/runs most of the billboards in North Dakota (which is sort of like running all the skyscrapers in Chicago; it's a corner on them market of one of the area's most notable features). Jim was, as he has been at every reunion, the life of the party.
• Gina - she's a nurse in Philadelphia (and came all the way from there for the reunion), improbably even more drop-dead gorgeous than she was in high school.
• Judy - the girl's track and basketball star in high school, she's still in town and - as Dan noted - hasn't changed a bit.
• Mad Dog - the Dog remains my oldest friend in the world; I have known Mike longer than any other person outside of my family, going back to when we were both around four years old. He is still...a mad dog. A couple of people noted what Pennie had in an email a couple of years ago; the two guys in our class whom nobody ever figured would be allowed to have kids were Mad Dog and I. And Mike has a nine-year-old daughter who lives with him fulltime, and I spend plenty-o-time with mine, which just goes to show you that high school impressions are worth as much as clicques. Although Mad Dog was as hammered as he has been at every reunion we've ever had...
• Lynnae - I'm amazed; she works at a company I used to work at (I won't elaborate; this blog has readers at that company), and in fact knows a lot of the people I used to work with. In high school she sort of had that Ann Wilson thing going on (and I mean "Little Queen" Ann, not the post 1990 Ann); today, more of the Diane Keaton (and I mean "Annie Hall", not "Something's Gotta Give"). Either way, it was fun to see her.
• Steve - he's at the University of ND right now; he's moving from the professor biz into Administration. He also held down the karaoke fort at the party (honest, Steve - if the damn book had had even one Bruce, Kinks, Sex Pistols, Ramones or Gin Blossoms song, I'd have had your back!), which I'm sure his students would find hilarious.
• Alayne - she's an editor at Public TV in Fargo. Still one of the biggest sweethearts of the bunch. One of the relatively few that brought a spouse - who is one of the best sports I've ever met at one of these things.
• Melanie - always the jockette in high school, I don't think I ever remember hearing her talk in high school (although judging by Jackie's "carrot in the nose" story, it was probably just me); she made up for it.
• Lisa T - married her high school boyfriend. Then, unlike so many such situations, stayed married for the past 20-odd years. They're a service family living in Germany, but I'm glad Lisa could make it. (Bring Corey next time)
• Kevin - a business consultant in Bloomington these days, Kevin was famous for being a very sharp (if R-rated) wit. He was also famous for being really, really big. Only the latter has changed; I didn't recognize him at the 20th reunion, and that was the only reason I recognized him this time; he's lost over 300 pounds since the 10th reunion, for the benefit of those of you who havne't met him lately. He organized the whole party; kudos on a fast job well done!
• Jen - She had been practically my neighbor in high school, living about a block down from me. There'd been this rumor before the tenth reunion that she'd been working as a model, somewhere or other. I could see it. I had the best time talking with her at the back-bar toward the end of the Eagles party.
• Nancy - another of those girls that married her high school boyfriend (Jen's brother, who looks like a either a young Robert Goulet or an old Orlando Bloom), and is still right there. Her luck was foreordained; she was our homecoming queen, and reigned over the homecoming game where, after decades of frustration, Jamestown finally kicked Fargo Shanley. I always chalked it up to Queen Nancy.
• The other Lisa T; we went to high school and college together. She's still in Jamestown, still married to my next door neighbor from college (who was a wrestler that could bend scrap iron in his biceps), still just about the nicest person alive

I know I'm missing quite a few. Sorry. I'm remembering as fast as I can.

And I hope to see all of you in five years!

Posted by Mitch at July 3, 2006 08:02 AM | TrackBack