Reunion

Recently I attended my 45th anniversary, high school reunion. I knew I had been to an earlier reunion but wasn’t sure which. Someone at the reunion dinner reminded me it had been the 25th; having taken it upon herself to know such things.

I am not sure why I decided to go. I was not on the “A” list in a school that had a caste system stronger than most. (Most people feel that way about their high school but there were factors in our town related to the town’s industries that made the boundaries clear.) My fantasy of the reunion was that it would be the same, except populated by older people. This perception was fueled by the earlier reunion where the boundaries, albeit weakened, persisted. Sample exchange:

“You don’t know who I am, do you?”

“Frankly, I don’t care that much.”

I have noticed that the older I get though, the more urgency I feel to reconnect with my roots. I have recently revived an interest in genealogy. Internet social networks have created opportunities to reconnect with people to reminisce or check my own recollections of this incident or that. In that context, I suppose it makes sense I would risk subjecting myself to a bit of angst in exchange for the opportunity to revisit a milieu that had been a part of my formative years.

Renée and I decided to camp in the area and arrived the night before the reunion. This gave us the chance to attend the alumni day parade. It was a typical small town parade with a couple of bands, fire trucks and an assembly of amateurish floats. I was pleased to see that my class had obviously gone to considerable effort to put together a professional looking Chinese dragon, borne by a dozen or so classmates.

After the parade, we visited the graves of family members, taking advantage of our rare presence in the area. I noted dates of birth and death in order to facilitate likely genealogical research and clarified in my mind my relationship to the bones.

The primary reunion event was a dinner dance at a local veteran’s club. After carefully dressing to communicate a message somewhere between “I’ve done pretty well for myself” and “I’m comfortable among you.” we arrived fashionably late.

Immediately on entering the hall Kenny, an A lister, loudly greeted us: “It’s Stu!”
It would have been a surprising to be announced in this fashion by someone so far up the social ladder but Kenny and I had run into each other when we were both in the army. The army has a way of equalizing people.

On Kenny’s greeting, many people turned to see us and waved or nodded in our direction. Most returned to conversations already in progress but a couple came over and made their “helloes” before heading to banquet tables.

Barb, who had sent most of the correspondence about the reunion, provided us with nametags and gave me a hug with the comment, “I wasn’t sure I’d recognize you.” (I’m not sure she did, since Kenny had blown any anonymity we might have chosen for ourselves. I was none-the-less grateful for the greeting and began to relax. )

We mingled for a few minutes, chatting tentatively with people I recognized, mostly from their nametags, as people I had known nearly half a century earlier. After establishing the basics: What have you been doing? Where do you live now? The conversations were the same as if meeting a total stranger, attempting to find the common ground.

Someone announced that we should find seats because the staff was ready to serve. There was no assigned seating so a treasure hunt began for a table with the right number of empty seats and, hopefully, with someone that we could compatibly spend a couple of hours. We found adjacent chairs next to a couple we had spoken to earlier and some others at the large, round table. Most were classmates who I recognized or their spouses who I did not. Most of my class apparently went elsewhere for intimacy.

While we waited, there was some general conversation and a number of people seemed to be working the room. They moved from table to table chatting with anyone not otherwise engaged.

Kenny, was one of those and he came over pulling up an empty seat to face Renée and me. I introduced Renée to him and he looked at her with an earnest expression on his face.“You know when was the last time I saw this guy?” he asked.“No, when.”“I was stationed in Vietnam and just had to get out of the place. I had a furlough so I wanted to take a flight anywhere – you could do that then - any place a military flight was going just so long as you could get back in time. Anyway, the usual places were Australia or the Philippines - somewhere like that. I lucked out and there was a flight to Hawaii so I jumped at the chance.”

He went on.“So here I am at Fort Derussey, which is a recreation post for guys on leave. (Image above) It’s right on Waikiki, and I’m wandering around wondering what am I gonna do. So guess who do I run into after five years?”“Stu?” Renée replied.“Yup. It’s a small world! After that, I rented a little MG Midget and Stu was good enough to show me around the island. Went up on the North shore, over the Pali – remember that stand of bamboo, Stu - had a great time.”Shortly after this exchange Kenney stood to return to his seat as the meals had started to be served.

“Nice guy,” Renée said.

“Yes,” I said, feeling thanked.