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At one point during the festivities1, I turned to a friend and said, "Jesus- this is like American Graffiti, by way of F. Scott Fitzgerald."
Originally, I came to the reunion out of a mixture of friendship for the dozen or so people from our class whom I particularly wanted to see, but had fallen out of touch with over the intervening years, and curiosity: how did everyone's stories turn out? I felt a touch of anxiety as I walked up to the restaurant- old ghosts, old memories of bitter times- but that was laid to rest almost at once; most people were genuinely glad to see me, and the rest were at least civil.2 I'm not always good at small talk when in a group, but as a social icebreaker, there's nothing that beats having known someone since before puberty: old stories to laugh at (in retrospect); absent friends to speculate over; as a fallback, that old standby, "So- what have you been up to for the last twenty years?"
The first night was a get-together at a bar downtown; after spending most of the day biking around town, the evening of the second day involved a dinner at the local university (all of the reunion sites were within ten minutes' walk of my father's house, which pleased me.) The dinner was the culmination of the reunion proper: people brought their children and spouses (one of my best friends brought her girlfriend, which surprised and delighted me), and we posed for a "20 years on" picture. Several friends of mine have become quite successful: Jason was drumming for Chris Cornell at Live Earth; Phil went on to cofound the Gigolo Aunts3; my friend Jenn went on to produce Naked Boys Singing. (For that matter, Urvashi Vaid grew up down the street from me, although I didn't know her.) We exchanged hugs, and numbers, and e-mails; I went home, and fell asleep by 11.
Yesterday was a more casual get-together, at the park4 down the street from my house. To my great delight, my friend Bobbi dropped by; I hadn't seen her for almost twenty years, since she married a paranoid, abusive jerk who was convinced she was going to leave him.5 Much hugging and catching up with her; then, Phil was persuaded to bring his guitar out. We all sat in a gazebo with some of the best acoustics I've ever heard, and ran through songs for an hour or so. There were many memories from that weekend I'll treasure, but that was the moment that remains sublime for me: leading our class through "Take Me Home, Country Roads" (and also "The Rainbow Connection") as Phil sang harmony and played along, and our voices rang out in the summer air.
***
1I've been in Potsdam, the small town in northern New York in which I grew up, for my 20th anniversary high school reunion for most of the week.
2Well, there was one guy who used to pick on me occasionally in high school; when he asked me what I was doing these days, and I explained that I was a proofreader, he replied, "Yeah- do they pay you by the word?" in the same tone of voice which he used to use when picking on me; I simply smiled, said whatever I said to that, and turned to speak to someone else. That was just a moment, though; people who were far worse to me in high school were far more pleasant at the reunion.
3Ah, Phil- he's completely and utterly unaffected by his success, one of the world's great mensches- the sort of person you want success for. (The first night, at one point, I started singing the opening verse of Chris Bell's "I am the Cosmos" for some reason. I heard someone who was standing behind me harmonizing with me for a moment; it was Phil. It turns out that the Aunts covered that song; the Pixies did so at roughly the same time, and apparently, there was a double-sided (vinyl) single of their two versions at one point. It was quite odd, finding that out in that particular way.)
4 A word for a vanished friend: in this park, there used to be a tree, that leaned far out over the water, at such a steep angle that I could almost walk up its trunk. I couldn't possibly count how many adolescent crises I worked through, sitting in the fork of that tree; I started going there not long after Mom left our family (when I was eleven), and stopped, by and large, when I went to college- although I'd always pause on visits home, and pay my respects. Roughly fifteen years ago, there was a terrible ice storm; that tree (and many others) wound up shattering in the cold. I remember gasping when I came home, and saw what had happened; I stood staring at its remnants for an hour or more.
When I was walking to the reunion the first night, I walked by that spot. The tree's stump has sprouted a plethora of new branches; there's been a canoe launch built just upstream from it, which was dedicated to a kid I used to know who wound up serving in the military (judging by his death date, I'd guess he died in Iraq); the sun was setting in the background as I walked by, a last kiss of gold amongst the branches. Cumulatively, it was overwhelming; it took me a few minutes to head on to the reunion.
5 An amusing, if that's the word, irony: he wound up leaving her; from what I hear, he's now in an absolutely ghastly marriage. (I find it hard to have much sympathy for him: for over ten years, every time I was in Potsdam, I left a voicemail message for her; I can only assume he was erasing them. Good riddance.)
Originally, I came to the reunion out of a mixture of friendship for the dozen or so people from our class whom I particularly wanted to see, but had fallen out of touch with over the intervening years, and curiosity: how did everyone's stories turn out? I felt a touch of anxiety as I walked up to the restaurant- old ghosts, old memories of bitter times- but that was laid to rest almost at once; most people were genuinely glad to see me, and the rest were at least civil.2 I'm not always good at small talk when in a group, but as a social icebreaker, there's nothing that beats having known someone since before puberty: old stories to laugh at (in retrospect); absent friends to speculate over; as a fallback, that old standby, "So- what have you been up to for the last twenty years?"
The first night was a get-together at a bar downtown; after spending most of the day biking around town, the evening of the second day involved a dinner at the local university (all of the reunion sites were within ten minutes' walk of my father's house, which pleased me.) The dinner was the culmination of the reunion proper: people brought their children and spouses (one of my best friends brought her girlfriend, which surprised and delighted me), and we posed for a "20 years on" picture. Several friends of mine have become quite successful: Jason was drumming for Chris Cornell at Live Earth; Phil went on to cofound the Gigolo Aunts3; my friend Jenn went on to produce Naked Boys Singing. (For that matter, Urvashi Vaid grew up down the street from me, although I didn't know her.) We exchanged hugs, and numbers, and e-mails; I went home, and fell asleep by 11.
Yesterday was a more casual get-together, at the park4 down the street from my house. To my great delight, my friend Bobbi dropped by; I hadn't seen her for almost twenty years, since she married a paranoid, abusive jerk who was convinced she was going to leave him.5 Much hugging and catching up with her; then, Phil was persuaded to bring his guitar out. We all sat in a gazebo with some of the best acoustics I've ever heard, and ran through songs for an hour or so. There were many memories from that weekend I'll treasure, but that was the moment that remains sublime for me: leading our class through "Take Me Home, Country Roads" (and also "The Rainbow Connection") as Phil sang harmony and played along, and our voices rang out in the summer air.
1I've been in Potsdam, the small town in northern New York in which I grew up, for my 20th anniversary high school reunion for most of the week.
2Well, there was one guy who used to pick on me occasionally in high school; when he asked me what I was doing these days, and I explained that I was a proofreader, he replied, "Yeah- do they pay you by the word?" in the same tone of voice which he used to use when picking on me; I simply smiled, said whatever I said to that, and turned to speak to someone else. That was just a moment, though; people who were far worse to me in high school were far more pleasant at the reunion.
3Ah, Phil- he's completely and utterly unaffected by his success, one of the world's great mensches- the sort of person you want success for. (The first night, at one point, I started singing the opening verse of Chris Bell's "I am the Cosmos" for some reason. I heard someone who was standing behind me harmonizing with me for a moment; it was Phil. It turns out that the Aunts covered that song; the Pixies did so at roughly the same time, and apparently, there was a double-sided (vinyl) single of their two versions at one point. It was quite odd, finding that out in that particular way.)
4 A word for a vanished friend: in this park, there used to be a tree, that leaned far out over the water, at such a steep angle that I could almost walk up its trunk. I couldn't possibly count how many adolescent crises I worked through, sitting in the fork of that tree; I started going there not long after Mom left our family (when I was eleven), and stopped, by and large, when I went to college- although I'd always pause on visits home, and pay my respects. Roughly fifteen years ago, there was a terrible ice storm; that tree (and many others) wound up shattering in the cold. I remember gasping when I came home, and saw what had happened; I stood staring at its remnants for an hour or more.
When I was walking to the reunion the first night, I walked by that spot. The tree's stump has sprouted a plethora of new branches; there's been a canoe launch built just upstream from it, which was dedicated to a kid I used to know who wound up serving in the military (judging by his death date, I'd guess he died in Iraq); the sun was setting in the background as I walked by, a last kiss of gold amongst the branches. Cumulatively, it was overwhelming; it took me a few minutes to head on to the reunion.
5 An amusing, if that's the word, irony: he wound up leaving her; from what I hear, he's now in an absolutely ghastly marriage. (I find it hard to have much sympathy for him: for over ten years, every time I was in Potsdam, I left a voicemail message for her; I can only assume he was erasing them. Good riddance.)
