It was hard then to know just where you fit in and why should it be any different now? God knows I didn’t know where I fit in forty years ago, the absence of four decades wasn’t going to change that any. As I scanned the room looking for a perch on which to roost, I noticed a number of similar, circling birds looking too, for a safe place to land. Straining to find a familiar, friendly face or a flock large enough for one to sidle up unnoticed. When finally committed I gave it my best, listening intently with failing ears, in the din of the crowded room. I nodded knowingly, though my knowledge were a lie, laughing habitually and politely at what I hope were the proper intervals in the endless conversations. Over a shoulder or just out of my field of vision I could hear the clang and clatter of a crashing bore and turned to briefly witness a flash of wide-eyed hysteria and the pallid gleam of a sweaty brow as some poor victim was pounded into declarative submission by one who has made it. 

“I’ve made it here, I’ve made it there, I’ve made my money everywhere…” 

“The problem is, I just don’t care,” is the reply that should be applied by the captive prey. You know you have earned the right to simply walk away, right?

It wasn’t really that way though, no, not very much. Maybe that was more my uneasiness and imagination getting the better of me. Most of that boasting was released, like so much hot air, at past reunions; the tenth, the twentieth, the twenty-fifth. Back when we were that much younger and we still felt we had something to prove. This was our fortieth and most of us sensible types were just pleased and appreciative to not be included on the big board, roll call of deceased classmates. Fifty-eight years on a hostile planet and still kicking? That’s my idea of making it.

The truth is the whole affair was a beautiful exercise in memory and that wonderful, fleeting state of grace that is our youthful innocence. The idea that we can still reach out and almost physically touch that innocence after so many years is a testament to the raw power of youth. Or maybe it’s just the artful deceit of nostalgia. Of course, we want it back, how could we not in a room where each face is a trigger at every turn? Ask any silenced name on that poster board in the corner if they wouldn’t like the chance to do it all over again and maybe refine a few of the rougher edges while they were at it and imagine what their reply would be. I’m thinking not one of them would say, no thank you. 

I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’m a bit of a head case (What, fifty-eight years of living and you’re not?) that I let a bit of doubt and a good measure of apprehension seize me in the days before the big event. Doubt in myself that I might not measure up, doubt in others that they would still be the good people I once thought I knew, doubt that we had ever had anything in common beyond the confines of time and geography that placed us all together for a few years, so long ago. I like to think it was more than that. I would like to believe that as someone suggested the other night, that the Class of ’83 was a sweet spot in the long chronology of classes that came before and after. The fact that we fairly packed two large rooms after forty years seems to reinforce the theory. Would other classes of a similar size or a similar era, or for that matter of another district or another state, have been as successful at pulling back together that many people? Maybe there really was something special about our class. It certainly felt that way when the brilliant video was playing on the big screen and we all watched with rapt attention. In between the sighs and the laughter, you could hear a pin drop as we soaked in the memories. There was a genuine warmth in the room beyond what the thermostat registered. The Spirit of ’83, hmm… perhaps there was something to those autograph page notations after all.

The night came and went and I am trying not to overthink it. It was a bit like paging through the yearbook in real-time. I am probably not the best person to describe how it went. I am gifted with a keen eye for observation and a generous capacity for input but cursed with an acute inability to coherently process any of the acquired information. It just sits there, gestating into nothing beyond a knotted tumor of disabling thought. I had a hard time just being in the moment when there were so many ancient, associated moments swirling around the room. At times I felt like I was standing in the crowded lunchroom with a full tray and no friendly table at which to sit. I guess that feeling of self-doubt and not really belonging never goes away completely. In a setting such as that, it is hard not to be a little haunted by the past. In my most reflective moments, I have a vague idea of what I should have been, a nagging sense of guilt at what I could have been and a rattling understanding of what I actually am. I suppose in the end we all come up somewhat short of our expectations, though those expectations vary widely. I am now hoping to be emotionally mature enough by our sixtieth reunion to step off where everyone else stepped off at eighteen. Look out 2044, you’re my year to shine!

That being said, I did have a few objectives for the evening. I was certain I was going to clear up some forty-year-old misunderstandings with people I cared about then and care about still. As it turns out any attempt was awkward and unnecessary. There exists an innate understanding that not one of us was at our brightest or making our best decisions at ages sixteen, seventeen and eighteen. Most any perceived slight or slip-up is long beyond the reach of the statute of limitations. That water went under the bridge so long ago that even the bridge has crumbled into ruin. Instead, there was just a natural pleasantness to sharing the same space again. I enjoyed everyone’s company and it appeared that the feeling was universal. Sure, the small talk became a bit too small on occasion but that is to be expected in these situations. Uncomfortable pauses were quickly swept away by a freshly arriving participant with a new, old memory to share. For myself, I reverted to my comfortable defense of deflecting any serious conversation with wisecracks, exaggeration, irreverence, and self-deprecation. It is an armor I have perfected through repetition but then don’t we all have our shields up a bit at times like these? The best moments came when we were comfortable enough to set our shields aside and those came often enough.

It is difficult to explain the emotion inherent in such a gathering but I believe there is comfort in the continuity. If I knew you at all, I can still see the ‘you’ in you. If I didn’t know you (and who in a class of six-hundred plus could possibly know everyone?) you just looked like another old person to me, and I the same to you. Isn’t the human brain a remarkable thing that in the mirror I’m still seventeen but in a photograph, I am seventy. Same with Jenny, I see her as I’ve always seen her, unwaveringly beautiful and youthful. It is all in the eyes of course and as I looked into so many eyes last Saturday night all I saw was your familiar, youthful, selves and there was joy in it and I was reminded of the old Moody Blues lyric, “Lovely to see you again, my friend.”

If I am subject to sentimentality regarding those long-ago years and the Class of ’83 it is only because I pulled the very best part of my life from those venerable Pattonville halls. No, not an education, from that I pulled out what I put in it, which was very little. I am referring of course to Jenny but in addition to the love of my life, I pulled out many great memories and an appreciative number of enduring friendships. More than I deserve, really and for that I am forever grateful. Maybe I affected your life back then in some small way I could never imagine or maybe you affected mine in a way you never knew. For better or for worse, here we are, and are we not lucky to be? 

Speaking of lucky, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how lucky I feel to have stumbled into the reunion planning committee. Comical really, if you know me at all, as I am generally not know for my participation skills. This is what happens when you make smart aleck comments on social media. The next thing you know, some determined, tireless organizer, so-and-so ropes you in and suddenly you are spending your Wednesday nights attending a series of mini pre-reunion, planning meetings and having a few drinks and a lot of laughs. That tireless organizer of course is our own Tracy Burmeister and I am eternally grateful to her for roping me in. Her efforts and dedication in putting together such a truly perfect event should be noted once again. Personally, I did little but disrupt but the rest of the planning committee was amazing as well and each brought their own unique talents and abilities to bear in making the weekend memorable for every attendee. I hate to pull that Gilligan’s Island “and the rest” BS on you all but if I start naming names, I will invariably forget someone and feel lousy about it. You know who you are and by this time hopefully, so does everyone else. Sorry, now you know how Russell Johnson and Dawn Wells felt.

Peering backwards forty years is a daunting undertaking. The memories can be recalled but like diamonds on the water on a sunny day, those brilliant moments flash and fade and drift along an endless current. Before you know it, your moments are irretrievably downstream and you find yourself peering dispassionately but knowingly at someone else’s sparkling presence. Big, cumbersome, life-defining words like fate, destiny, and purpose can break both your back and your spirit if you give them too much credence. Maybe our only purpose here is to bring comfort and aid, joy, and laughter to the relatively few we encounter along the way. Many of you did that for me in my long-ago lifetime and I am forever thankful to you.