“Did you get this thing from April?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Well are we gonna go?”
“I dunno. Whaddya think?
“I dunno. I mean it’s not like I interacted much with these kids in high school and you’re the only one I even talk to at all since.”
“Yeah, well. I think you had a better time than I did at the 50th. You went around and talked to people you didn’t know and I sat at the table with kids from elementary school. If I go I’m definitely not asking Billie to go. She went to my 50th and I went to hers, so we’ve each made the total boredom sacrifice.”
“That must have been awful for her. I did have some interesting conversations.”
“Yeah, well, I’d like to try that, so maybe . . . yeah let’s go. I’ll send in a check.”
“You realize we are absolutely the last generation that still uses checks.”
“Yeah.”
So Ben, my best friend through much of junior high and high school, and I, two old guys now who talk on the phone two or three times a year decided to go to our 60th high school reunion. Our 50th was the last time we spent any solo face-to-face time. Ben did come to my 70th birthday party.
“Yeah, well, you’ve called me on my birthday every year for thirty years or more. It seemed like the least I could do is show up.”
Our bond over all these years may be our common cynicism, and sarcastic senses of humor. At least we’ve stopped ripping on each other constantly like we used to do.
There were a few phone calls about deciding where to stay, “Airbnb no hotels,” and transportation:
“Driving for five hours? Are you nuts? Take the train; I can pick you up.”
“Nah, I think I’ll drop by to see my sister before and after.”
There were also some second thoughts.
“Are you sure?”
“I think so. Y’know, at least we’ll get to see each other.”
“Yeah, that’s a plus.”
“Or not.”
“Asshole!”
“Come on, you were thinking it.”
“Yeah, I suppose so. We haven’t seen each other much.”
And so we went. We arrived at the Airbnb Friday night after I drove four hours and fifteen minutes, and saw my sister briefly. One of Ben’s clients learned he was going to be down from Vermont and so he had meetings. He’s still working as an architect and I’ve retired as a consultant and am working pro bono as a writer of now two books.
After all these years, we fall into old patterns, we spin dark humor from world events, crack wise on the absurdity of politics, and our own mistakes over the years. We “solve the problems of the world,” and laugh a lot. We still can’t make a joint decision to save our souls.
“Whaddya wanna do for dinner? Go out? Order in?”
“Dunno, Whaddya think?”
We used to drive around saying, “Whaddya wanna do?” “Dunno, we could . . .” Yeah or . . .?” “Nah, that’s lame.” “Well whaddya wanna do?” “We could . . . or . . . ?” “Maybe . . . or . . .” “Man, we’ve been drivin’ for Three Hours!” Well, whaddya wanna do?”
We once drove from Boston to New York City on a Saturday. Went up the Empire State Building and took a picture on a disposable camera and drove home just to prove we did something.”
So late Friday afternoon we spent looking at restaurants and takeout places. “Whooda thunk nice places would require a reservation on a Friday night?” “Can we make a 5:30?” “Yeah, man.” “It’s 5:10 now” “Restaurant’s less than three miles away.” “You changin’?” “Hell no! We’re old, nobody cares what we wear.”
We did finally find a nice restaurant and we had a lovely meal and talked and talked. We bought a sixpack of beer and each drank one beer and talked and talked until geezer midnight (9:00 pm).
Next morning, there were no coffee filters, so I MacGyvered one from a paper napkin.
“This is truly terrible coffee!”
“Yep. Dunno if it’s the filter or if I put in too much coffee.”
“It only made ¾ of a pot”
“I filled the pot”
“Where did the rest of the water go?”
“Dunno.”
“What time does this thing start?”
“11:00.”
“We better go.”
“Plenty of time. It’s only 17 minutes away.”
We arrived at the reunion restaurant about 10:55; The parking lot was almost full.
“I guess 78-year-olds get there early.”
There were three or four women from our class who did all the planning and they did a nice job. They picked hot hors d’ oeuvres and four entrees. Joe, the student who took many of the student newspaper and yearbook photographs, was there with a collection of his photos, including Ben in “You Can’t Take It With You,” and me in “The King and I”. There were nametags. Women’s name tags had their maiden names printed below their name in lighter type.
We had about 80 total, 60 classmates and some spouses. Our class was huge, 516, if you can believe the yearbook. We were at the front end of the Baby Boom. Truthfully I always thought our class was as large as the 700+ classes that followed us, but the yearbook pictures and camera-shy lists are probably accurate. We didn’t know very many people.
We knew some people, our class president Tom, who might not have realized that the role was for life, but didn’t seem to mind. We knew Joe the camera bug, Greg who showed up with pictures on his apple computer of graduation and of both his wives, children, boat, bigger boat, and new Cessna single engine airplane.
The reunion attendees were ¾ women, including spouses, which might be typical of 78-year-olds. Many attendees seemed to have maintained contact as evidenced by clusters of women hugging and taking selfies. I found breaking into those groups hard. Part of that is my natural introversion. Part of that was that the nametags were a little small for my corrected vision. Part of that was that, apparently, there were too few people who ever worked sales at a trade show.
Most people are right-handed, so they take the name tag, peel the back off with their right hand, and slap it on the left side of their chest. In trade show sales, you learn to place your name tag on the right side, so it’s visible when you shake hands. So with my old eyes, and triple focal lenses I found myself craning my head to stare at the left side of women’s chests to try to read their light type maiden names. Awkward.
Ben and I found another Greg and Joe, that we didn’t know to talk about our idyllic 1950s childhoods, the Vietnam War, how the town has changed, and who we might have known in common, like Tommy the three season star, football, hockey, and baseball. We left about 3:00 and changed and went for a walk.
“Whaddya wanna do about dinner?”
Ultimately we found two stools at the bar of an upscale Mexican restaurant and talked and talked more at home, and drank two more beers, and stayed up past geezer midnight.
The next morning Ben got up early and went and bought us Dunkin Doughnuts coffee.
“I was done with the whole napkin experiment.”
We talked some more and some more.
“What time is it?”
“Oh jeez. It’s 11:15. The Cheesecake Factory brunch started at 11:00.”
“That’s OK. I think I’m done talking with old people I don’t know.”
We talked some more and went back to our lives, vowing not to let another ten years go by.
On the four and a half hour drive home, I listened to the radio. Around Stamford, Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days” came on.
“I hope when I get older I don’t sit around thinking about it, but I probably will
Yeah just sitting back trying to recapture, a little of the glory of
Well the time slips away, and leaves you with nothing, mister, but boring stories of
Glory Days, yeah they’ll pass you by
Glory Days, in the wink of a young girl’s eye
Glory Days, glory days.”
Thank you Alan, you have truly captured the spirit of the weekend.
It was fun, Ben. Again, in less than 10 years?