BoomerGirl Diary

I've been thinking about school reunions lately: grade school, high school, college. They are usually a mixed bag, fun, but bummers.

My friend went to her high school reunion, her 40th. She had to be nearly dragged back which I thought was strange. She was a celebrity in high school. If my name was up in the high school gym for the most points scored in a girls' basketball game I'd certainly like to go back. Anyhow, she went. She saw people she hadn't seen in years. Unfortunately, during the dance, one of her classmates collapsed and was taken to the hospital where he died.

"See, I should have never gone. That was the worst."

My high school reunion was a lesson in re-writing history. I have to admit that I was totally distracted by the large number of bald men. This was my 25th so these guys were 43 years old. The thing is that we graduated in l971 when guys wore very long hair. Now, I didn't expect ponytails, but every time a guy took off his hat and he was bald it was a jolt. I remember the long ponytail clearly.

There were other adjustments. The most counterculture guys were now representatives for pharmaceutical companies, and marketing masters for Proctor and Gamble. I know, inevitable but still you carry this image of a guy baking purple cakes in his Easy Bake oven, driving around with one foot out the window, and suddenly he's selling soap.

Then we had this party boy turned serious lawyer who wrote a commentary which went along with a video. Somehow our lives in high school were interspersed with national protests and politics. Now this wasn't all fiction. Jerry Rubin did come back to our high school and create some havoc. That was true. But mostly we were imitators and followers of college kids. In this video we became activists who changed the world.

A friend of ours in Kentucky went to his 25th high school reunion with interesting results. The attendees all voted on "who had changed the most since high school." Our lawyer friend won this competition hands down.

"How have you changed?"

"Well, I have a beard and it's grey and I only weighed about 110 pounds in high school. Now I weigh about 150."

"I guess that's pretty different."

"The strange thing is that I won against a guy who had a sex change operation. Personally I voted for her."

I went to another high school reunion where I could just observe. Bob and I attended his 40th reunion in Hastings, Neb. I didn't know anybody. I had talked on the phone to Bob's buddy C. He brought his scrapbook with him. C's mother had diligently (this was in the '50s) collected various items. One page showed two bills, one for the cleaning of a pink sweater and one for a doctor's visit.

"That's for when my girlfriend broke up with me. I waited for her to come back with her new boyfriend. When he got out of his car, I punched him. Blood got on his sweater so it had to be cleaned. He thought I'd broken his nose, but I hadn't. We had to pay for the doctor ... I was kind of immature I guess."

"And your mom kept this stuff."

"Sure, it was history ..."

It was at this reunion that I realized something about high school. I was in the restroom and there were several 58 year old women. They were all carefully made up, good dye-jobs, and stylish clothes. Their conversation was all too familiar: who was fat, who looked terrible, who needed a stylist ... I rushed out of the restroom and found Bob. The women finally came out.

"Were they the cheerleaders at your school?"

"How did you know?"

This reminded me of my Catholic grade school reunion. Why did I agree to go, I thought on the way there. I had attended a public high school and had no contact with my old friends from the Catholic grade school. I think it was my mom who talked me into it.

"Now you be sure to tell them about your brothers and sisters who have graduated from college ... tell them that two are doctors."

"Mom, maybe they won't even ask ..."

"That's my point. Those kids were so snotty that I want to make sure that you tell them ALL about our family ... "

"And I thought it was me. You thought those kids were really mean to us?"

"Well, of course I did. We just couldn't tell you because we thought it would make it harder. Why did you think we let you all go to the public school?"

So I went into this rather lame Catholic school auditorium. I wandered around and talked to my peers who were now in their thirties. They had changed a lot since eighth grade.

"Oh, Leah ... My husband has talked a lot about you. I thought you would have red hair."

"Why?"

"Well, my husband said that you started a lot of stuff. You were always leading some protest against school policies. And wasn't your family involved in civil rights?"

Then I saw one of my earliest crushes. He was now a priest and extremely serious and boring. I looked for several other guys. Somebody explained that they weren't there because they were doing time for grand auto theft. I wasn't too surprised at that. My favorite guest was Sister Grace Angela, our eighth grade teacher and the principal.

"I just wanted to apologize to all of you for your seventh grade teacher, Sister Mary Emma. We didn't really know how bad she was.. Your class probably suffered from her instability. I don't think I need to elaborate."

I thought, of course you don't All of us could remember the humiliations, and the screaming at us. We all got in trouble, all 45 of us. Sister Mary Emma had a way to use her stiff fingers and stab at your breastbone. She also pulled people by the ears.

As Sister Grace Angela spoke, the bad memories rushed back. This grade school was not the greatest by any standards. What about the teacher who would test us once a week and then re-seat us according to our test scores. She called the last row of poor achievers Skid Row. Pretty rough for fourth graders. Or the teacher that called us all by numbers; I was 24. But Sister Mary Emma stood out as the meanest and maybe a little nuts, come to think of it.. She would get mad and make us stay after school until somebody (always a boy) admitted to some misdeed, like stealing all the chalk or hiding the paddle. I would root for him to NEVER admit it. I wanted to see how long she'd last.

Hey until that reunion I'd forgotten all that. I walked around bragging about my brothers and sisters, for my mom's sake. Then I left .

You'd think I'd learn my lesson. But I did go to my college reunion. My younger sister who also went there warned me, "You won't have fun."

But I persisted. I kept thinking that I need to become a lawyer or a doctor in the next three months ...Or at least lose weight.."

I begged my doctor into Phen-Fen and took off 30 pounds quickly. I decided that if I was cornered I'd say, "I'm also working on a book." Isn't everybody working on a book?

Now you might say that the warning signs were there. When I drove onto campus it all came back to me. I was the hick from the Midwest with all the sophisticated easterners and rich kids. I was the exotic Catholic from a large family. Once my sister and I were in the mailroom, comparing our care packages of undies and pajamas. My sister read a hilarious letter from my mom at the top of her lungs. We were dying laughing while our friends stared in shock.

I sat around with my old friends from college. They talked about their books, their law offices, their summer homes. I was the only one who brought pictures of family, our house, our town.

"A teacher. I always wanted to do that some day ..."

As I walked through the constant rain, I felt the same way as I did then. I didn't fit in. Not sophisticated enough. Sharing pictures, come on. A teacher ...

Later we were sitting in a coffee shop. A man pressed his face to the window and saw us. Then Steve came in and sat with us.

"I thought you might be here ...I came all the way from Cleveland."

"Either you leave or I'm leaving ..."

"Okay, I'll meet you in an hour at the Army store. Just to talk. Okay?"

"Okay."

I remembered their rocky relationship during college. They had married right after college and been divorced for several years. He'd been in all kinds of trouble then (gambling, alcohol, drugs) and it had stopped and then started again.

"Hey, it was great seeing you all. I've got to get out of here or he'll be following me I'm going home. See you around."

We had a luncheon and caught up with life on campus. The sadomasochist club was still fighting for recognition while the sciences were still outstanding. A large number of students were from California and New England. As I sat in the dining hall I remembered meeting up with my sister. She got me a job bussing for Sunday brunch every week, eight hours in a row. We'd fill the milk machines, the glasses trays, and anything else. We'd laugh and talk about home.

I got back.

"How was it?" My husband asked.

"It was okay. Nobody died."