But I was stuck for an answer when Roger (I had to put the email strong-arm on him to get him there) sat down across the table from me and asked, "Why do you want to have a high school reunion?" or something like that. I've been thinking about it. What's behind this urge (longing?) to see people from decades ago?
I've rejected the common wisdom that people go to reunions to see how we stack up. Oh, that's probably in there somewhere, but I don't think anyone wants to get together just to compare jobs (or at our stage, retirement packages), lifestyles, or wrinkle status. (OK, maybe how we stack up in the battle of the bulge is a consideration.)
I gave some thought to "catching up" as a motive for getting together. That's appealing, but there is only a smidgen of that, given the total time available to talk (and in my most recent experience, having to work in the catching up during the breaks in the Elvis impersonator entertainment--whose idea was THAT?!). But I did find out a few things--like that fact that Jane goes to Hilton Head every winter with her mom, that great blue herons frequent the lake in front of Roger's house, that Mary Lou has moved to Bass Lake (was it Bass Lake?), that Kay comes home from California several times a year to visit her mom. But a reunion isn't really required to catch up--we have email and Facebook and Xmas-card newsletters for that.
I've concluded that most of what pulls me back to Ionia falls under the umbrella of nostalgia. I never lived in my home town after high school graduation. And, as with women being willing to go through childbirth more than once, the wonderful trick of memory has diminished the bad parts and rendered the picture far rosier than it no doubt was.
I am drawn to that past--not to live there (god, no), but to touch it. High school was a shared experience, and these are the only people who lived it with me. Every girl in my class lined up for phys ed in her blue shorts and ironed (!) blouse while Mrs. Shutes called the roll. Everyone took the Kuder Preference test in Mr. Griffin's guidance class and gave declaratory speeches in Ray Monte's speech class. We all know what Union Hill is, and the Junior High Annex, and Perrone's. We saw Ben Hur and Pollyanna in a movie theater that had ushers, or maybe at the drive-in. We bought school supplies at that ridiculous little window on the first floor. We dissected frogs and spat out chewed potato into a test tube in 10th grade biology. The answers to some secrets now emerge--who painted "Class of '63" on the water tower, and how Mr. Pepple's (was that his name?) Isetta got picked up and moved from his driveway on Halloween.
Shared memories, shared experiences. Priceless.
