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 10th 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.
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