We drove from our home in North Carolina all the way to southern Ohio, navigating mountain turns and straight ahead through acres of farmland. It took us eight hours to get to where my husband's high school memories reside.
The bed and breakfast we had stayed at five years ago would be my reward for being a spouse at a class reunion, a marital obligation some endure, while others opt out and hope an old flame isn't waiting in the bleachers for some imaginary half-time. Of course that scenario only tends to happen to those who never found a mate along the way and keep coming back to the reunions, perhaps hoping to get lucky.
We walked to a well-known and loved restaurant where some of the classmates would gather for dinner. Arriving early, we ate before the group showed up which proved to be the wise decision since the hugging and talking that ensued kept even the hungriest from their food. Facebook had allowed me to be a familiar face to these total strangers hugging me and welcoming me to their town. I saw the glances the women eight years my senior gave me though I pretended not to notice. Yes, their classmate robbed the cradle. Almost 29 years later, and there is nothing that can be done about it.
Later, my husband and I would walk across the bridge to the new brew pub for the first official reunion event, the night before the reunion, housed in what used to be a fire station with the big doors left intact and not quite enough outdoor seating. A small caterer offered a dinner of pulled pork, slaw and other sides that sounded good although we had just eaten pizza. A food truck offering doughnuts was a temptation we managed to avoid.
My husband re-engaged with his long lost classmates as I sat talking to the wife of his friend who came to the event hoping I would be there--the wives' plan for survival. We enjoyed our "brews" while batting the small black flies that kept dive-bombing us on this warm Ohio evening near the river under a threatening sky. Before long the bottom fell out, pouring rain, and we ran inside. Since we had walked over from the bed and breakfast, we decided to try to wait out the storm.
A man walked up, introduced himself, and said, "I wonder if anyone here knows me." He explained that he had transferred to the high school his last two years from a Catholic school for which his father had decided to stop paying tuition, and according to this man, it was probably out of spite. He went on to say that he hated his father and his father hated him, the kind of declaration someone can make after several beers. Words, that after all of these years, poured out like the rain outside the door.
He had graduated a year before the class having the reunion but seemed to have shown up for the sole purpose of being known by someone. He said he beat up some guys in high school and was expelled for three days once, this man in his '60s still looking for absolution. His actions that day had given him the reputation of being a "bad boy" which he apparently had been trying to reverse as he has been running a successful business for many years since and has made a lot of money, he assured us. He had done his penance.
I wondered about the people we are in high school and the people we become. My husband was not a good student for a myriad of reasons, but eventually earned two master's degrees. That fact may surprise some of his classmates, or maybe they knew he was smart all along. My reputation, on the other hand, was of being one of the top students in my high school. It was when I walked into my class reunion holding a beer that one of my classmates was shocked. I had been one of the youngest members of my class, starting kindergarten about a week after I turned five, forcing me to imbibe illegally until I was nearly ready to graduate from college. The point is, when one returns to a reunion of people with whom he or she attended high school, expectations are not going to get one very far.
In the midst of being hugged long and hard by a woman I may never see again, and eventually asking someone for an umbrella so we could make our trip back to our "home" for the night reasonably dry, I lost track of the man in search of validation. Seems like he had his photo taken with some people who may have known him, or maybe they just wanted him to abandon his search so he could find peace and acceptance among a new group of people who would be his friends, at least for that night. Maybe when they will look at the photo at some future time they will see something in his face that will trigger a memory, a twinkle in his eye, the way his mouth curved as he smiled, his infectious laugh, and they will piece together a story of a boy filled with anger because he felt unloved--a boy who expressed himself one day at high school with fists instead of words. And they will see that in spite of all that was against this young man, he turned out ok.
The bed and breakfast we had stayed at five years ago would be my reward for being a spouse at a class reunion, a marital obligation some endure, while others opt out and hope an old flame isn't waiting in the bleachers for some imaginary half-time. Of course that scenario only tends to happen to those who never found a mate along the way and keep coming back to the reunions, perhaps hoping to get lucky.
We walked to a well-known and loved restaurant where some of the classmates would gather for dinner. Arriving early, we ate before the group showed up which proved to be the wise decision since the hugging and talking that ensued kept even the hungriest from their food. Facebook had allowed me to be a familiar face to these total strangers hugging me and welcoming me to their town. I saw the glances the women eight years my senior gave me though I pretended not to notice. Yes, their classmate robbed the cradle. Almost 29 years later, and there is nothing that can be done about it.
Later, my husband and I would walk across the bridge to the new brew pub for the first official reunion event, the night before the reunion, housed in what used to be a fire station with the big doors left intact and not quite enough outdoor seating. A small caterer offered a dinner of pulled pork, slaw and other sides that sounded good although we had just eaten pizza. A food truck offering doughnuts was a temptation we managed to avoid.
My husband re-engaged with his long lost classmates as I sat talking to the wife of his friend who came to the event hoping I would be there--the wives' plan for survival. We enjoyed our "brews" while batting the small black flies that kept dive-bombing us on this warm Ohio evening near the river under a threatening sky. Before long the bottom fell out, pouring rain, and we ran inside. Since we had walked over from the bed and breakfast, we decided to try to wait out the storm.
A man walked up, introduced himself, and said, "I wonder if anyone here knows me." He explained that he had transferred to the high school his last two years from a Catholic school for which his father had decided to stop paying tuition, and according to this man, it was probably out of spite. He went on to say that he hated his father and his father hated him, the kind of declaration someone can make after several beers. Words, that after all of these years, poured out like the rain outside the door.
He had graduated a year before the class having the reunion but seemed to have shown up for the sole purpose of being known by someone. He said he beat up some guys in high school and was expelled for three days once, this man in his '60s still looking for absolution. His actions that day had given him the reputation of being a "bad boy" which he apparently had been trying to reverse as he has been running a successful business for many years since and has made a lot of money, he assured us. He had done his penance.
I wondered about the people we are in high school and the people we become. My husband was not a good student for a myriad of reasons, but eventually earned two master's degrees. That fact may surprise some of his classmates, or maybe they knew he was smart all along. My reputation, on the other hand, was of being one of the top students in my high school. It was when I walked into my class reunion holding a beer that one of my classmates was shocked. I had been one of the youngest members of my class, starting kindergarten about a week after I turned five, forcing me to imbibe illegally until I was nearly ready to graduate from college. The point is, when one returns to a reunion of people with whom he or she attended high school, expectations are not going to get one very far.
In the midst of being hugged long and hard by a woman I may never see again, and eventually asking someone for an umbrella so we could make our trip back to our "home" for the night reasonably dry, I lost track of the man in search of validation. Seems like he had his photo taken with some people who may have known him, or maybe they just wanted him to abandon his search so he could find peace and acceptance among a new group of people who would be his friends, at least for that night. Maybe when they will look at the photo at some future time they will see something in his face that will trigger a memory, a twinkle in his eye, the way his mouth curved as he smiled, his infectious laugh, and they will piece together a story of a boy filled with anger because he felt unloved--a boy who expressed himself one day at high school with fists instead of words. And they will see that in spite of all that was against this young man, he turned out ok.
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