Intro to Reunions 101
There’s a lot of theories out there on how to approach and enjoy your high school reunion, but one that you don’t hear a lot about is to make sure that you go to the wrong one. The wrong reunion I mean.
By this I don’t mean that if you’re Class of ‘73 that you somehow or other get it mixed up and go instead to the Class of ‘74 reunion. That looks more like you have no gift for attention to detail or have a basic misunderstanding of the western numbering system.
No, I speak of going to the high school reunion of another school altogether, perhaps in an entirely other town, zip code, time zone, or hemisphere.
Think of it as testing a stage play out of town before you open on Broadway; it's a chance to fine tune your act.
Many fine people will say, "oh, what are you worried about anyway? You'll have a blast at your reunion. Aren't we all in this crazy world together? Why don't you just loosen up for a change?"
This is warming to the soul and no doubt true, but I think it is best to have this other approach in your back pocket just in case. It is much more action-oriented, much more rubber hits the road. You end up not needing it? Fine! But otherwise you can't be too prepared.
All this plan calls for is a half tank of gas and a willingness to wander into the Civic Center of a strange town.
At your actual reunion recall that there will be fine people who still have a certain image of you drawn from your time together a couple of hundred years ago.
You need to prepare because otherwise you are bound to disappoint these people.
I’m not saying that you, or better put, I, were anything especially to write home about even then, but at least the dew of youth was upon us and it was early in the morning hours of one's lifetime.
You, or better put, I, had a certain number of people fooled. But you, or better put, I, have declined precipitously since then, like one of those arrows on a chart pointing downward that is meant to show the audience at home the speed and slope of the stock market’s crash.
“You’re not telling me that that’s Artie Furlittle are you?” the ingénues will whisper as you pass by, balancing your plastic glass of punch with one hand and your plate of sliced roast beef in the other. “My goodness, he has certainly let himself go!”
This you’d as soon protect yourself against. With all the good will in the world, you don’t see the need to expose yourself to these kinds of haphazard ratings systems, which do not in any event tend to be generous by nature.
They further might ask, these fine people I speak of, how your 12-volume novel is coming, and your dual doctoral degree, and your time spent bringing science and the fruits of the Enlightenment to the hill tribes of this or that remote province, which, speaking of remote, none of which do you remotely remember having said that you would do.
Though you did say all that, and quite a bit more it comes back to you now, quite a bit more indeed, and they have a perfect right to ask I suppose.
If you are of an uncertain and perhaps even bewildered nature and are not at your best in the category of sparkling repartee, this reunion is looking more and more like an event where others will shine and you will quietly applaud them from a distance, a distance which might be measured in feet, perhaps yards, and in the most extreme cases, miles.
However, and this is the crux of the matter, if you make a point of proactively wandering instead into the wrong reunion, you can practice for all this and in fact, just might have the time of your life.
You’d be surprised how easy this is to do. Find the town, the hotel, the reunion advertised on the placard in the lobby.
There's usually a reunion going on most places; just try to keep the year of graduation within five years plus or minus of your actual year.
Get there late enough so that the only name tags left are those of people who clearly aren’t going to show up at all, grab one when no one is looking, and then wander into the Mamie Finkelbush Room, Chamber B.
Keep to the shadows for a while to get your bearings....and then get out there, man, with your hand outstretched! You haven’t seen these people for a long time!
Well, you haven’t seen them ever, but there are certain rituals that don’t change from town to town or school to school and in fact don’t have a lot to do with whether you’ve actually ever known one another or not.
Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t. In this crazy world of ours does it really make that much difference?
They may not be able to quite place you, but you know how these things are. At this stage of the game just how many people can place you anyway, including the people who really do know you?
“It’s Richard Rhodes,” you say a little hesitantly, approaching a beefy man with his tie loosened and his sleeves rolled up, glancing quickly down at your own name tag to see who you are. “Awfully good to see you.”
The surprised other party shakes your hand heartily, and says, “Awfully good to see you, Richard. I don’t mind saying it’s danged good to see you in fact.”
He is at that stage of the evening that even if he isn’t the type of man who ordinarily embraces other men in a bear hug, he certainly is now. It is as if, like Ebeneezer Scrooge, he has discovered – this very night! – the underlying oneness of the human race at the last moment and now intends to make up for lost time.
“Ebeneezer!” you half shout/half groan in the depths of his bear hug, getting a glimpse of his name tag at the last minute, “I mean, Andy!”
“Honey, look, it’s Richard Rhodes!” the man says bringing his wife over.
“Richard!” she squeals. “You haven’t changed a bit! How long has it been?”
Well, it’s been forever, or never, or something, but she is so welcoming and her embrace is so warm that you’d never say that, so you just stand back in wonder and, peering at her name tag say, “Betty? Betty Rollins? Is that you? Well I should say it is! You look the same as you did the night of graduation!”
“Oh, that just the type of thing you would say, Richard, you always were such a sweetie.” She peers at you a little puzzled, “now what classes did we have together again?”
“Stay right there, Betty, I’ll be back, I’ve got to see if that is Rachel Ann over there by the punch bowl.”
“Rachel Ann? Who’s Rachel Ann? That’s Jacquelyn McQueeny.”
“Oh, my gosh, you don’t mean it. My goodness, she has really let herself go, hasn’t she?”
Well, you get the picture, it’s a situation that breeds a certain amount of invention in the best of circumstances and in these circumstances that I describe right here almost demands it.
That’s fine. It’s all good! Just keep dodging and weaving, floating through the crowd, shaking hands, telling stories of when what’s his name snuck over to that other school and stole their mascot and then Coach Whazit found it in the girls’ locker room the next day.
How everyone howled when they found out!
How everyone is howling now!
How they don’t quite remember that story or remember what they are howling at!
But you were always so good with a story, even in high school, that the audience can always just sit back and enjoy.
You are greatly aided in this enterprise by the fact that most people have been shaking hands with near strangers since the sun set and trying to keep names straight.
They have now given up entirely on that, this keeping the names straight business.
Something had to go and knowing specifically who it was you were talking to was the easiest thing to discard. Turns out you don’t really need to know precisely who a person is, approximations will do.
There is such a general feeling of connection and conviviality and good fellowship and the glow of inclusion that you can scarcely go wrong.
I encourage you, if you pursue this path, to discover sides of yourself that you never have divulged to any of your loved ones, perhaps not even to yourself.
If you have long wondered if you could have a career as a standup comedian, now is your time to grab the microphone.
If you ordinarily are reluctant to wander onto the dance floor, tonight is the night to find your inner Fred Astaire.
After all, it’s your high school reunion!
Well, it’s somebody’s high school reunion, and that’s good enough.
When you finally leave the Civic Center, the people all but wail, “Stay, Richard, stay, we have so much to catch up on!” But you bid adieu regardless, throwing a careless kiss to the crowd and then dissolve into the night. It’s better this way. “Don’t let it be another thirty years!” they shout after you.
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And as it turns out, when you do go to your actual reunion, still glowing with the reception you got three towns down the highway, thirty seconds in you're asking yourself, 'what were you worried about?'
You'll find your classmates to be the same golden lads and lasses they always were: bright, shining, beautiful, even after life has bounced the majority of you around like pinballs in an arcade machine that was never level nor plumb nor true, bounced you around with a little more vigor than you would think absolutely necessary to get the point across that life is uncertain and comes with no warranty, even for golden lads and lasses.
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And if you don't make your own authentic reunion after all?
You may see one of your actual classmates later in the year, and when he asks why he didn’t see you at the reunion, think back on your performance in that ballroom three towns over and tell him, amazed, “See me? How could you miss me? I’ve never had such a good time at a reunion!”
Which is all true enough in its own way.
