High School Reunion: No Autographs, Please

For twenty-plus years I resisted attending my Class of '79 high school reunions. The first one occurred a decade after graduation and I opted not to go. In 1999 I was invited again. Again I chose to stay home.

It wasn't indifference that kept me away--my high school years were just fine by me--but to go would've compromised a standard I'd set for myself in my senior year. My goal at graduation was laughably ambitious but not entirely unfeasible: I would become a world famous rock star by the age of twenty-two.

Five, then ten years came and went and by twenty-seven I was still just a part-time musician and famous, perhaps, to a few dozen local rock-club patrons. 

At thirty-seven, my goal was now grossly incongruent with everything else going on in my life. I was a husband, a dad and a first-time homeowner with little spare time to pursue my fading dream. Occasionally, though, when the stress weighed too much, I would dust off that adolescent fantasy and tell myself I still, at my age, had a sliver of a chance. 

So I skipped the first two reunions, determined that I'd either go back to my peers as a massive success or not go back at all. 

Last October my forty-seventh birthday arrived and though I still wasn't famous, my life had turned out okay. This March, I got an email with "Class of '79 Thirty-Year Reunion" in the subject line and I made my decision before the message had finished downloading. I knew, beyond a ghost of a doubt, that the time had come for me to go.

My wife was encouraging and suggested that I'd enjoy myself more if I went solo. So, it was me alone who approached the front entrance of the Holiday Inn that evening, dressed to the nines and amazed that I was actually going through with it. I smoothed my suit, pushed through the doors and strode into the lobby with a racing pulse. 

Who would I recognize? Or who--for that matter--will recognize me?

The first question was answered within moments of my arrival. A throng of forty-somethings crowded the hotel bar and a blondish woman in red looked instantly familiar, even in profile. She faced me as I approached.

"Leslie!" I said cheerily. "How are you?" 

"Claudine," she corrected. 

She turned her back and ignored me the rest of the evening. Claudine had been a mega-popular senior and if I'd punctured her ego, it was an honest mistake. Present-day Claudine really did resemble the overweight Leslie I'd known in high school. 

A Leslie, it turns out, who no longer existed. 

She arrived at eight, an apparent stranger. She must've dropped a pound per year since graduation and now, at forty-eight, she looked incredible. Unlike Claudine, the mature Leslie seemed pleased as punch that her classmates failed to recognize her. They'd look at her name tag and then look at her, eyes wide with disbelief.

The night progressed and I found that despite my appalling lack of fame, my former classmates greeted me with nostalgic delight. We asked each other the same predictable questions and we provided our answers in swift bullet-points: Yes, I still live locally. Married? Almost fifteen years. Kids? Two, nine and ten. Yes, I still play music, occasionally.

More than once I was reminded of something amusing I said or did back in the seventies. It's funny how people from your past remember stuff like that. You may doubt its accuracy but if a second classmate corroborates it, chances are it really happened.

Some people change and some people don't. A girl who had been as shy as a mouse was now a gum-chewing chatterbox and funny, to boot. There were others, though, whose social skills remained as awkward as I remembered them to be. I'd do my part by asking appropriate questions but if the other person won't return the serve, the conversation will sputter and stall like a car on empty. 

I developed a graceful escape strategy, though. If the chit-chat reached an uncomfortable lull, I'd look past my classmate's shoulder and then nod as if someone was beckoning me. 

"Uh-oh! I'd better get over there!" I'd say with sudden urgency, "But hey, it was great seeing you!" 

By the end of the night, most attendees had formed the same social groups that defined them as teens. Since I was remembered as a Rock Musician--an identity acceptable to almost all cliques--I still enjoyed some diplomatic immunity. I flitted smoothly between a balding herd of Jocks, a Nerd who stood alone near the bar and several Heads who were outside smoking at wrought-iron tables. The Heads, more than any other group, defied the passage of time with grey feathered hair and denim vests purchased when Carter was president.

I left at eleven-fifteen that night, immensely glad I'd decided to attend. I'd made it through the night without being famous and no one seemed to mind. 

I'll definitely go to the next one, now that I've rid myself of those ridiculous standards. They're talking about a thirty-five year reunion, tentatively slated for 2013. 

That gives me five more years to get good and famous.