20th high school reunion (from 1979)

Buffalo News

Aug. 17, 1979

CLASS REUNION

A tale of adult ego in conflict with uneasy memories of adolescence. And a happy ending.

        “Dear Classmate,” the letter began. It was only the second time in my life that graduating from high school had ever put anything in the mailbox except graduation cards. The first time, it was an invitation to the 10th anniversary reunion of the Class of ’59, Fredonia High. I missed it. This one was for the 20th, coming up four months hence. It would be a two night affair – a picnic Friday and a dinner-dance Saturday. I marked the dates on the calendar. This time wild horses wouldn’t keep me away.

        In return, the reunion committee wanted two things: money and a synopsis of the last 20 years. I wrote a check for $28, which was the easy part. Not so easy was the task of cramming more than half a lifetime of misadventures into the questionnaire that came with the letter. In the end, the cross-country motorcycle trip and the rock band went into the space reserved for honors and awards. So much for honor.

        What chance does the adult ego stand, anyway, against those messy memories of adolescence? No matter how sophisticated you are, someone always remembers the way you looked in your raunchy gym uniform. No matter how much you’ve accomplished, there are witnesses to testify how dumb you were that night at the prom. As the fateful weekend approached, there was a final touch of teenage irony. I sprouted a big, ugly, red zit, right in the middle of my chin.

        Ours was the last class of less than 100 to be graduated from Fredonia High. Being a small group, we were particularly cohesive. Scholastically, we were sharp. More than half of us went to college. When it came to sports, though, we flunked. Our Dunkirk rivals mopped us up all year long in football, basketball and baseball. We had a zippy yearbook with a red cover. We defied conventions by dedicating it to the school’s head janitor.

        Going to the picnic was like going back to “Happy Days.” There was lots of pizza with Italian sausage. A tape layer boomed out the rock ‘n roll hits of the late ‘50s. No sooner did I arrive at the grove than I was accosted and carried off by two jolly beer-drinkers I hadn’t hung out with since the days when we were getting kicked out of physics class together. It was nostalgia at first sight.

        One of these guys now was an engineer in Rochester. The other was a scientist in Corpus Christi, Texas, with a Texas drawl to match. The revelations didn’t end there. Another classmate was a maverick computer repairman in Connecticut. Another was a highly successful salesman living in East Aurora. Still another was married to a man who’s a partner in all the Wendy’s and Arthur Treacher’s restaurants in metropolitan Buffalo.

        Roughly half the class was still living in the Fredonia area, many of them holding positions of responsibility in the community. One headed up a division of a large commissary operation. Another was in charge of Dunkirk’s school music program. The chairman of the reunion also served as chairman of Fredonia’s annual harvest festival.

        The hometown classmates said, however, that the hometown wasn’t what it used to be. The old families and the coziness were gone. Several were living in rival Dunkirk, where real estate wasn’t so expensive. The growth of the state college was what changed the village, they said. They maintained that the bigger high school classes that followed us did not have the same spirit or sense of community. We really had grown up in a golden age and that golden spirit was alive with us that night.

        The uncanny part of it was that, except for a few gray hairs, almost everyone was a sleeker, fuller version of the kid they were 20 years ago. They looked good. For comparison, one could always refer to the gawky pictures in the yearbook. Nevertheless, there was still room for mistaken identity. Few occasions in life are more embarrassing than meeting someone you saw daily for four years and calling them by someone else’s name.

        There were more opportunities for that the next night at the dinner-dance. Most of the picnickers were back for a second round. Also on hand were a few folks who missed the picnic. Still absent was the class president. Among the guests was the janitor, now retired, to whom we’d dedicated the yearbook. He got up and told a couple geriatric jokes, giving everyone a hint of where all of us middle-aged war babies were headed.

        Thanks to the reunion committee, however, the occasion stopped just short of turning into a thoroughly adult dance party. What they did was bring back the old jokes and the old personalities. Someone suggested we all head for the lakeshore and go bushwacking. Bushwhacking – the act of harassing romantically-inclined couples in parked cars – was the one sport the Class of ’59 excelled at. Then one classmate, an Army careerist who flew in from Germany for this, was prevailed upon to explain for once and for all how he came to be nicknamed “Chicken.”

        And there were awards – baldest man, most changed woman, newest marriage, oldest child (the winner graduated from high school this year) and, of course, furthest distance traveled. That went to our Swedish exchange student. She came all the way from Stockholm. Pictures were taken, addresses were exchanged. The committee offered to send out copies of their master list.

        There was an audible groan when the class voted to try to get together again for a 25th anniversary bash in 1984. It came from the committee, which worked for six months on this affair. Their two-night brainstorm was a popular success. As intended, the picnic ironed out most of the stiffness that stifled the 10^th anniversary dinner. But to do it again? “We’ll see,” was all they’d say.

        When the band struck up its standard wedding and party repertoire, the class clumped into its old cliques. Couples who hadn’t danced together in 20 years took to the floor again. The band didn’t know how to play a song to do the Stroll to, but they knew the Bunny Hop. Quick as a wink, a huge Bunny Hop chorus line engulfed the room. For a crazy minute or two, I could’ve sworn I was back at a dance in the gym.

1989 feature on Shooters

Denise Jewell Gee quoted from this story in her column on Monday, Sept. 15, 2014.
Here's the whole thing.

Lifestyles feature

May 24, 1989

FINDING SHOOTERS IS A TASK; ENJOYING IT SHOULD BE EASIER PICTURESQUE WATERFRONT CAFE OPENS TONIGHT WITH A SPLASH

  
THE NEWEST addition to Buffalo's shoreline -- Shooters, which bills itself as "Waterfront Cafe U.S.A." -- opens at 8 tonight with a burst of fireworks appropriate to the launch of a major civic appurtenance. Even with skyrockets as a guide, however, the big question is how to get there.
    Forget such designators as Seaway Piers Marina, its nautical address, or 325 Fuhrmann Blvd., which is of help only to the postman. By land or by sea, the key is to look for the Skyway.
    Sailors will find Shooters near the south end of the Skyway. Landlubbers, on the other hand, have two approaches.
    Those driving south from downtown Buffalo should take the first exit they see after they get off the Skyway. Those heading north toward downtown should turn just before the Skyway begins.
    In either case, the signs to follow are the ones that say "Coast Guard." There's a Coast Guard base not far from Shooters.
    Arriving by car, you'll find the waterfront cafe at the end of what will seem like a vast parking lot, but not to worry. Motor on up to the loop at the front door, trade the keys for a claim check and let the valet parking staff take care of the rest. As for do-it-yourselfers, just look for an empty spot.
    Similarly, boaters pulling up to 340-foot floating dock will find valet docking. Trained attendants will direct sailors to open berths and secure them.
    No matter how you get there, be assured that no attire is too casual for Shooters. The gentlemen who founded the original restaurant in the chain in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in 1982, did it because they couldn't find any other respectable waterside oasis that would accept them as they were in their shipboard clothes.
    Done up in "Miami Vice" pink and turquoise (actually, says Jan Idelman, the chain's publicity director, a reflection of the colors at Pilot Field), the sheer sumptuousness of the place may inspire more dress-up than the other Shooters. According to Clay Thompson, vice president of operations for the chain, this is the glitziest of them all.
    Shooters, however, feels quite different from the city's other dockside restaurant, Crawdaddy's at Erie Basin Marina. Where Crawdaddy's is cloistered and labyrinthine, Shooters is big and wide-open.
    Inside and out, Shooters is oriented entirely toward the lake. A greenhouse of glass gives everyone in the tiered main dining room and bar on the first floor a watery panorama unequaled in Western New York.
    Look north and there's downtown Buffalo rising above the ruins of its grain elevators. Look west and see the broad expanse of Lake Erie, with the Canadian shore across the water paralleled by harbor breakwalls. Look south to find the hills of the South Towns, the hulking remnants of the old Bethlehem Steel plant and the largest stretch of undeveloped shoreline in the Northeast.
    The vistas are even wider outside on the patio. The best views of all, though, are upstairs in the second-floor bar, banquet room and terrace, an area reserved primarily for private luncheons and parties except on Friday afternoons, when it's thrown open for happy hour.
    From now until Labor Day, most people going to Shooters will wind up on the patio, which seems twice as large as the indoor part of the restaurant and which has its own free-standing bar. At 3 p.m. on Saturdays, weather permitting, the patio will be the site of Shooters' most notable promotion -- "hot bod" bikini contests, which carry $1,000 in prizes.
    Along with dozens of umbrella-shaded tables and four tropical palm trees, the patio area includes a sandy beach and a pool. The beach is a sunning beach rather than a bathing beach, being situated behind a rocky breakwater that rises 20 feet above the harbor. And the pool, three to four feet deep, is for wading, cooling off and perhaps volleyball, but not swimming.
    A promenade running the length of the dock is considered a public access area, open to all who want to drop by just to gaze at several hundred thousand dollars worth of sailing vessels. Those aboard the boats can disembark for food and refreshments or get restaurant service on board, though state law forbids bringing on any alcoholic beverages except for beer.
    Taking care of all these details will be a staff of more than 300, chosen, Ms. Idelman says, for experience, energy and enthusiasm. Dressed to complement the colors of the place, all have undergone more than a week of training, testing and drills under the guidance of staffers from other Shooters restaurants in Florida and Ohio.
    "We call our staff a team," Ms. Idelman explains. "When something needs to be done, everybody pitches in and gets it done. The only place you can compare it to is Disney World."
    Connotations of the restaurant's name (Shooters being, alternately, high-rolling big spenders or mini-cocktails concocted by mixing liquors, liqueurs, juices, creams and sodas in a cocktail shaker) might suggest it's dominated by its bar business. Ms. Idelman says sales figures indicate just the opposite. Food accounts for 60 percent of revenues.
    Shooters offers a menu that's best described as late 20th century American eclectic. There's a little bit of everything -- more than 100 familiar items, none more expensive than $14.95 and most in the $5 to $10 range. There's pasta; there's Mexican; there's seafood and steaks; there's Sunday brunch.
    Most popular items at other Shooters are the $8.95 teriyaki chicken and the potato skins, which go for $5.95 loaded and $2.95 plain. The entry least likely to be encountered at other Buffalo restaurants is a Florida specialty -- conch fritters at $3.95.
    As for drinks, Shooters may double the per-capita consumption of rum in Western New York. The list of specialty cocktails is deep with frozen daiquiris and other tropical potions. Prices are reasonable for a fancy place -- or fancy compared to most Buffalo bars.
    Frozen and tropical drinks run $3.60 and $3.80. Beers go $1.80 for drafts, $2 for bottled domestics and $2.80 for bottled imports. Shooters -- eight are listed on the place mat, among them the Kamikaze and the Alabama Slammer -- vary from $2.80 to $3.40.
    Finally, just because you found the place and spent a couple of pleasant hours there, don't expect to know your way back by land. The exit road is one-way south. Those heading home in that direction can simply take the first entrance ramp onto Route 5.
    Going north, however, means finding a U-turn. Look for the first Coast Guard sign, turn left there, then follow the highway back toward Shooters until you see the on-ramp at the base of the Skyway. The rest should be easy.