I used to think reunions weren't my thing. I thought they were only for people who were happy in high school and had nothing but great memories—in other words, class reunions were for football players, cheerleaders, class officers, and the "popular set." I was none of those things (bet you could have guessed I didn't play football). No, the only bright light for me was choir. Choir I knew how to do. Choir was my lifeboat in the dark, turbulent waters of high school. But even my good memories of choir weren't enough to entice me to wade through the crowd of "others" in search of a small handful of fellow choir geeks.
So it shouldn't be surprising that I haven't attended any of my class reunions, and there have been several, both major and "mini." Granted, I sometimes had legitimate excuses; for instance, I couldn't go to the big 20th because I was in Italy at the time, but I did order the book for which I and my classmates wrote short summaries of our lives since graduation. I was rather proud of mine, as I thought it a sort of vindication for the negative social status and miserably low grades that marked my high school career. "Choir Geek Makes Good in Major World-Class Opera Company." It is a sad aspect of my character that puts so much importance on other people's opinion of me. I've never been able to do anything, anything at all, without wondering how it would look to other people. But at least I'm aware of this shortcoming, and it is indeed a shortcoming—it's called pride.
One of the things that can conquer self-pride is love for others. Last weekend, there was a reunion, not of my class, but of my high school choir. I couldn't participate in the concert they literally threw together willy-nilly, but the temptation to see after so many decades some of my old choral comrades was just too great. So when they went to lunch between rehearsals for the concert, I joined them, literally for just an hour; but that hour was one of the happiest I've had since November 4, 2009 (you're probably wondering what happened on that date, but I'm not telling, and please get your mind out of the gutter!). This sounds so terribly cliché, but everyone looked exactly as I remembered them. That's because I was looking at them through, to quote Frasier, "love goggles." These people made high school tolerable for me, and I loved them for it.
A couple of days later, I made a date for coffee with one of them. She and I didn't really get a chance for a good chin wag at that flying lunch, but we certainly made up for it over our laid-back coffee at Starbucks. She brought with her a copy of my book of juvenile poems and song lyrics which I had given her as a graduation present. My own copy of the book, and it was the only copy I had, went missing back in the '80s. Needless to say, I'm thrilled to have my old poems and lyrics again, horrible as they are. Believe me, they are horrible. But since I threw out all my adolescent journals during a fit of depression in college, these horrible things are the only written record of those turbulent years. So they are very, very precious to me, like a bratty kid whom you love anyway because he is your child. And my friend was everything I remembered her to be: one of the sweetest, kindest people I know.
I came away from that weekend with the conviction that there should only be specified reunions of choirs, bands, football teams, pep squads, drill teams, clubs, etc. You can keep the big, general class reunions. But I'm only speaking as one for whom high school wasn't a generally great experience.
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