Reunion

Some of you may know that my 20th high school reunion is approaching and I was invited to join the committee. Admittedly, I was kinda nervous to get back into seeing people from high school wondering, “Will they think I’ve gained weight?” (I have) “Will they think I have no fashion sense?” (I don’t!) “Will they think I’m a loser?” (Sometimes, I am.) “Will they remember the cool parties my parents let me throw (They do!)?”

But, it’s been nothing but fun to reconnect with ‘kids’ from high school, and last Saturday night we organized a pre-reunion get-together at our high school’s town summer fest. The committee is going all out with this, an amazing Web site, creating business cards, a unique logo for our reunion, and we even gave out cute buttons at the fest so everyone could wear ‘em and it would be easier for us to figure out who was in our class. Even some kids from the class of ’86 were impressed with our class’s enthusiasm.

And let me tell you, the class of ’87 was far from enthusiastic 20 years ago at our senior spirit assembly…(follow me in a cloud of reminiscence as I retell the tale that made the class of ’87 a legend in their own right…)

It was spring of senior year and every year they had Spirit Week. Each class was designated a color and at the end-of-the-week assembly, we would stand and cheer for our class, show our amazing school spirit and whoop away the other classes with our love and enthusiasm and excitement of being such a close-knit family of high school students.

Not this class.

No. Word got around that our class should veto the RED we were all supposed to wear to school for the spirit week. Instead, we would all wear black. We were uniting in the darkness and without saying a word, we would be telling the whole school so much.

So, that day, we students trickled into class, and many, many, many of us wore black. There were a few kids who did not receive the “Don’t Wear Red” memo, but, we didn’t have cell phones, email, text messaging, hell, even copy machines or computers, and our class has about 600 students, so more than likely, some didn’t get the message.

One student came dressed as a living, breathing, “Luke-I-Am-Your-Father” Darth Vader. We saluted him – our hero! We all made our way to the gym for the assembly.

The freshman class, all clad in yellow, was announced, they stood and yelled their enthusiastic Yahoos and Whooos, and clapped and shouted. Sophomores, clad in blue, jumped and stomped and clapped and screamed, “YAY Sophomores.”

Juniors in green were announced, and they too, did the “I’m-In-High-School-And-I’m-Proud” cheer.

Next up, us, the seniors. Boy, were we ever cool. We denounced everyone. We disobeyed the structure of the assembly. A hush came across the crowd, some 2,500 students, awaiting the whoops and cheers from the class mostly united, united in their decision to laugh in the face of school ritual and pride. No, we, class of ’87, would start our own ritual. We would be known throughout the halls of DGN high school as being the class with no spirit. When, really, how much more spirited and connected could one class get?

To veto the norm, to set ourselves apart from the standard, to bind together as a group, without adults telling us what we should do. We united. We stood. We were announced, and we all turned our backs from the gym floor and stayed silent when it was our time to scream and yell and whoop and cheer.

Not one word echoed through the gym.

And by doing so, I’d say we were never more united as in those few quiet moments.

And I know not one student from the Class of 1987 will ever forget that moment. The moment we united like no other class had ever done...
So, fast-forward 20 years but rewind to last Saturday night…

Hubby and I go out first to dinner, and I tell myself, “Two glasses of wine. That’s it. Just two.”

Yeah, uh, right.

Two at dinner.

Then we get to the fest, and run into all sorts of people from The Past, and there’s beer there, and you know I don’t drink beer, but I’d rather have that than Boxed Chardonnay or Mike’s Hard Lemonade, so I drink it.

And drink some more, and reminisce and laugh with old friends, and meet some new people, and then Hubby and I run into people he knew from way back when. Way back when he was a cop.

Did I ever share that with you? Hubby was a police officer. Like a real one, with a gun, and handcuffs (sadly that were never utilized in our home), and a billy club (Gladly never utilized in our home), and we run into guys he knew from the force like 15 years ago, and some of them, man, they have not aged a bit, maybe even gotten cuter! And apparently, much to Hubby’s and my surprise, he is a legend. A legend I tell you!

The cops recounted a story where Hubby slammed on the brake once during a training when they got new squad cars with anti-lock brakes, and he broke the freaking thing straight off the car. He walked out of the car holding the brake. Like the whole piece.

And they recounted another story where there was some stuff going on, and a guy in overalls was causing trouble, and Hubby walked up to him, grabbed him by the overall shoulder thingies, lifted him a foot off the ground, and said, “Listen up Jethro!”

And the best story was when he was on the force for only three days and they got a call about some ‘suspicious activity’ happening at the motorcycle dealership in town. They don’t turn on the squad lights and sirens because they were going for the super-secret surprise method for this particular case. And good thing, because they hunch forward to the windows of the motorcycle dealer, and what do they see?

A man doing a woman doggie-style in the front window. No lie.

So, instead of doing the responsible thing like making sure the woman is there on her own free will, and busting in to save her, what do they do?

They call all the other cars in the area for a peep show!

The cops still say in all their years working the beat, never have they encountered an escapade like that.

Turns out she was there on her free-will (and on her hands and knees), and the guy was a manager of some sort of the store so he had the keys and was just fulfilling a fantasy. Cuz we all dream of doing it in a store window, right?

So, those were some fun recountings of the good old days.

Then, after the high school catching up and the cop-catching up, we were heading home when I had to pee. Like, really pee badly. So we go by this bar I knew some other people were going to be at, and pay the $5 cover each because I had to pee so bad, and if we were going in there to pee, and we had to pay the five bucks to do so, well, we might as well have a drink there too, right?

Think Spongebob with me here:

Three.Hours.Later….

Yep, one pee for $5 ended up with us hanging out there practically till the bar closed listening to this band: The Polkaholics.

Every song was sing-songy chicken-dancy-hokey-pokey but the words were all about beer. Like drink, take a sip, drink, drink, drink, take a sip, rounds of music.

It was fun. I didn’t think I was drunk. I really didn’t. I had had the two glasses of wine at dinner, two to three beers at the fest, one Stoli-O with cranberry, and then a Nutty Irishman. Doesn’t seem like a lot in a six-hour time frame does it?

Well, it was enough to slam me on my ass all day Sunday. I got up once at 10 a.m. to feed the kids some cereal, then crashed back to bed until 1:30 p.m. I was up until 2:30 then decided, “Screw this, I’m going back to bed.”

I then slept from 2:30 to 6:30 when Hubby came in the room and asked, “Do you want to be a part of this family?”

Fortunately, there was no vomiting incidents, just a headache and the need for some serious sleep. And I got it. And I’m renewed and refreshed today, and went and did yoga this a.m. and now have a houseful of kids playing and running and screaming through the rooms, and all is good. And I’ve stuck to the WW points all week except for the alcohol intake, but I do get 35 points extra a week, so why not use it for that? And being in bed all day yesterday actually saved me points cuz I couldn’t eat! I think I got this thing figured out.

Maybe. Maybe not.

At least my head’s done pounding, and I don’t have to do it again till next week when I go see this U2 Tribute Band.

**And hey, if you're a member of the graduating class of DGN '87, please leave a note and say hello!