COLUMN: Reunion Reflections -- The Best of the Five Years After

From Darin Smith's "The Balding Of?," Fall '94 I arrived late, after the buffet of boiled ham and macaroni bake had been put away, but in time for the dancing and general schmoozing. The deejay spun the greatest hits from 1989 in our honor, and everyone boogied the night away. It was, indeed, not so bad, and in fact very edifying. I made some empirical observations that may someday be confirmed as scientific laws: *No one's high school is as multicultural as they thought. Reunions are even less so. Though I distinctly remember minority students of all sorts in my graduating class, there seemed to be a very conspicuous lack of diversity at this bash. Of course, being in Philly and at Penn will sensitize a person to these things. *The people who seem most intent on being remembered tend to be those with whom one was never really friends, but to whom one was merely not unkind. Former classmates who say, "I bet you don't remember my name," tend to be Christines or Mikes, but never Sonias or Andrews. Cramming from the old yearbook can help to trigger memories of old names and faces, but these are difficult to retrieve accurately and jointly a few hours later. *Old acquaintances who entered the armed forces have done much more interesting things than those who went to college. Stories about the Gulf War or the mission in Haiti are way better than the one about the friend who didn't graduate because his CGS course wasn't accepted toward the major. One-upmanship with a veteran is a losing effort every time. Even stories about vomiting or A.C. or both will come up short. *Everybody you ever had a crush on will always look really good. Everybody who ever had a crush on you will always look really bad. Everybody you ever went out with will be living with some other guy, but will still think about you from time to time. *Large groups of white people dancing tend to eventually form a circle, across which the guys you never liked will sachet very quickly and awkwardly. The urge to join the circle or to sachet across it should be resisted by any means necessary. *The number of people who clumsily report that they've moved back in with their folks is directly proportional to the number who said in high school that they hated their parents, and mainly consists of college graduates who majored in something their parents warned them against. Those people who never went to college have paid off their car loans, are living on their own, and, at least for now, are supervising the aforementioned college graduates at the local tire factory. *The passing of five years doesn't automatically clear up a skin condition or an inability to behave decently while intoxicated. *Pulling a geek's pants down is not funny. Pulling one's own pants down is funny. *Cyril Connolly said, "Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising," and must have thought of this at a high school reunion. The people who were voted Most Likely to Succeed in high school become either insane (if they've studied the sciences) or inconsolably malcontent (humanities) five years later. *The class clown tends to become embittered by a string of broken relationships and a job selling trucks. Cream pies and hotfoots give way to melancholy brooding and occasional fits of rage followed by intense sobbing. *The little black dress is de rigueur for the ladies. Acid washed jeans and skinny leather piano-key ties are a definite faux pas for the gentlemen. Fashion and pop culture references must be at least ten years old to be successful kitsch. Anything more recent is just hopelessly distasteful. *Spreading false rumors about absent class members is only a good idea if one intends to miss all subsequent reunions. *By the age of twenty-four, everyone's political views and weight distribution seem to have shifted toward the middle. Reminders of one's volunteer work for the Dukakis/Bentsen '88 campaign and one's formerly lean cross-country-running physique arouse similar feelings of embarrassment. *The women nobody dated in high school are the first ones to get married. The men nobody dated in high school never date anyone, but have very nice entertainment centers in their apartments, complete with a twenty disc changer, about which they are very happy to talk. *People say things like, "I'm sorry to say it, but you're losing your hair," but in fact, are delighted to say it. Bringing this all-too-obvious fact to someone's attention gives the speaker great joy indeed, and should never be confused with an objective attempt to reveal scientific truth. *A reunion can only be declared an unqualified success when a former football star drunkenly but earnestly asks, "Where's my pants?" Whether these principles hold true for all reunions, I do not know. At any rate, it is interesting to experience such a reconvening of the old tribe, to feel that there is indeed continuity despite the changes in time and place. Whether it is a high school reunion, college homecoming or family Thanksgiving, the rituals of remembrance provide us with a sense of rootedness that serves as our foundation for all other things in life.