Class at the Reunion

Several times as we journey through life, we find ourselves in a time warp.  One moment we were “there,” now we’re “here.”  Scripture is replete with warnings about space-time shifts.  Life is like a “dream,” a “weaver’s shuttle” flying across the threads, a “day” [ephemeral literally means “a day” in Greek], and “the [brief] flowering of both flowers and grass,” etc.

We all remember kicking off our shoes for the summer on the last day of school.  Actually, that was in my yester-years.  Kids don’t go barefoot anymore.  They wear $280 Mephisto sandals or Chinese-made flip-flops for 1.29 at Walmart.  I’m not sure about the comfort of either, but hold fast with my high school friend, Truck Driver, who always contended that “no one looks good in glasses.”  No one really looks good in flip-flops.  Sorry.  I’ve done a whole book on calves, so I’m not about to get started on feet.

The point here is the passage of time.  It “flies,” we say.  One day the flip-flops, the next day a “Back to School” banner over Abercrombie’s darkened door—or KMart.  When you’re squirreling your way through the rabbit maze called high school, you wonder if civics or physical science class will ever end—all 50 minutes of it.  Now think about your class reunions around the corner.

I conceded one reunion to my wife. We chose the 40^th—40 years zooming at what we now know as “faster” than the speed of light.  At the 10th reunion, everybody is looking at  body type: heavy—or even heavier.  The cheerleaders usually take a beating on this one, often unfairly:  children, a heavy cheap college carb diet, the frustrations of “real” marriage, the impact of moving from Provo to Toledo or Cleveland.  [Lora says 10 years is usually too soon anyway…everyone is still jealous of each other.]

The 20^th is less “show and tell,” and most of the original couples have played marriage musical chairs and ended up with someone else from. . . . Toledo.

But the 40^th is sweeter.  In our class, 2^nd and 3rd marriages seemed to be working, at least that night at Martino’s Winery.  Everybody has pictures of grandchildren—his, hers, theirs, another former mate’s. It’s a joyful jumble.  Carolyn and I and another couple, Jim and Judy Berquam were the surviving four left standing.  Judy was kind, even though she had only vague recollections of me from high school, while Jim hardly remembered my name, though we seemed to have spent all our late-waking hours talking about utter nonsense our prodigal senior year. Chris, the early morning literary DJ in Northern Exposure confesses that he “lost” his 27^th year.  “I don’t remember a single thing,” he says. Here comes Thoreau, shouting, “Can a man waste time and not injure eternity?” And that’s the reason we went to this gala affair in our hometown, Escondido.  I went as a penitent, having vowed to show all that the class clown, the infamous yet often funny “dink-off” had landed on planet earth.  My restless, wasteful wandering had miraculously led me Home—to college, to church, to Germany on an LDS mission, to that deeply tanned little beach-bunny who had actually swum out to a battleship on her senior “ditch-day” because she was not interested in Bud Light.  And we had four children, a job, and no bills. Wow, did we stick out!

Cursed with a near perfect memory, I meandered among the unsteady, recalling whole days, quoting vows and curses and promises they had all made between classes or on the bus home.  As a piece of that collective mismanagement of time and energy, I felt a great desire to say “I’m sorry.”  "I'm sorry for being the chief distraction of the Class of 1958.  I changed.  Now I know who I am."

No one could remember anything I said they said.  When I told Jim Berquam that I remembered the spring day in 8^th grade when he said he was “going to Berkley because they had a great name, The Golden Bears; and that Johnny Oshevsky played fullback,” he gave me the blank, sardonic stare of a Norwegian sardine fisherman.  Nothing.

When I told Richard Dixon [a consistent LDS] that I was sorry for discrediting the church by being thrown out of chemistry class a record 8 times, he smiled and said, “forget it.  It’s over and you’re not the same guy.”

When I squeezed Karen Painter’s hand and said, “I wish I’d had sense to date you instead of that blonde banshee who ate my heart raw,” she simply smiled and said, “I didn’t know you cared then."

And that’s the point of this babble. Most people forget;  most people forgive, if they remember; most people do not really listen to each other; most people do not see each other… though they look.

Henry James, the writer, said we ought to be people "on whom nothing is lost." Painful as high school was, I did not lose it.  Better yet, I  built on the mistakes.  Over the years as I have deconstructed and reconstructed the experience, I have learned in both heart and  mind how I would do it again.  This exercise is part of the repentance process.  In the words of Paul, "Through Christ we make all things new again."

As we walked to the car, hand-in-hand, I did feel renewed.  In spite of an occasional washed-out bridge or unexpected rock slide, we were well along on our journey.  I have high school in the memory pot, still simmering, curing, becoming something sweeter, more nutritious, something to feed on.  I have not forgotten my classmates and more importantly, I love them.  Had Jim Bergquam chosen to spend five minutes talking with me instead of dancing all night with his wife, I would have apologized for those hours I robbed him of homework time and valuable energy. You see, he did fulfill his own “prophecy” and finished all three degrees at Berkley.  I wonder if he ever saw Johnny O?