Brief Reflections On 30th High School Class Reunions

It seems strange and yet excruciatingly familiar to be back in touch with friends and acquaintances from high school. That feeling grows with each passing decade as the reunions come at ten year intervals. This October the Chatham High School (Massachusetts) Class of 1976 will hold its 30th class reunion and it will be an interesting one, although I am not anticipating being able to take as much of a part in it as I had hoped. This morning started with a telephone call from a friend I have not spoken to for that entire 30 years. The voice was familiar but the person behind it, though still very much my former classmate, was different and I could feel that difference even over the phone lines. This is not a bad thing or a sad occurance - there is nothing wrong with that being the case at all and, in fact, is probably a very good thing as maturing and growth are integral to our existence, but it still accentuates the passing of time and the changes that have taken place, the aging and the losses of some of our fellow classmates, the lost moments when an old friend would have been so very welcome even though they would have ended up being present during the forging of new relationships had they been there, relationships that formed because of the gaps caused by the absence of those same old friends. And so it goes, life flows constantly and we flow with it but, when there are certain events to be taken part in, that flow can seem to suddenly stop or to slow down so the years feel as though they are dropping away although the creaky knees or the aching back remind us that those years are still very much a part of our present, as well as past, existence. Hearing her voice took me back to one specific party we and another friend attended during our stint at the local community college following our high school graduation. Too much detail or too good a memory would be unforgivable at this point in all of our lives, but the memories that do present themselves, often unbidden, speak so strongly of more than just one static moment or occurance in time. There were the three of us, newly fledged as adults back in those few rare years when the legal drinking age was eighteen and we were learning to fly. Whatever mistakes were made, or merely unfortunate choices, were all part of our individual journies into the people we are today, which is not such a bad thing.
It will be fun to be able to see some of the people I went to high school with, to hear of their trials and mistakes, triumphs and joys over the years, and to get to at least see pictures of children and grandchildren because we are now far enough removed from our own childhoods that some of us are, or soon will be, grandparents. Our hair is greying, our faces wrinkling, our eyesight slowly failing us. Some of us have had health problems only "older" people have, and some of our number are gone, having succumbed to the cycle of life and nature at too young an age. We will be flabby in spots, somewhat or very overweight, although not all of us, tired by early in the evening, and too well aware that even more of us will not be there for the next reunion that will happen on schedule because most of us really do like to see one another and catch up with each others lives despite adolescent differences or animosities, despite widely different lives or life-styles. And we will treasure our encounters. We will, for a brief time, understand what treasures are held in the form of human flesh in each of our former friends and classmates, and we will enjoy getting to know one another all over again, although if some of us drink too much we may end up resurrecting arguments and anger, jealousies and hurt feelings best left in the past, where they rest for infinity in a grave not of our own hands.
We will also learn new things about ourselves, sometimes about our past selves (as in "I didn't know you ever did that in high school!"), and definitely about our present, slightly age-worn, selves. It seems that school can never be truly dismissed. I just hope I am not late for class.

Dreams of Pizza and Apocalypse

I am fleeing to Canada in a car with a boy
I knew in high school.
He is dressed in a tux,
I am dressed up, too.
I take the wheel so my friend can
Wave at someone behind us,
They are fading into the horizon.
The windshield is a giant computer screen.
Suddenly, I dodge a dead donkey
Splattered in the road,
Like that deer two Springs ago.
The steering wheel is a thin
Ultra-modern mystery.
There are cars and smoke up ahead.
I panic and my friend takes the wheel again.
It is the Apocalypse,
We'd be crazy to turn back now.
The car rolls slowly to a stop.
I look at the boy next to me as
He gazes calmly ahead.
The Democrat is dead but
The pizza is delicious.
It has the extra crispy crust.

Teenager Nerd Revenge

I have to smile...
I was young and foolish once
And wanted to play the electric bass guitar
And rotate my hips as I
masturbated the strings along the neck
Sliding, sensual sounds
While wearing skin-tight
Bell-bottomed sequin-studded jumpsuits
Letting my cleavage show
And maybe my navel
With pants so tight across my ass
All the boys who wouldn't look twice
Would get all hard and horny
And then, in their faces, I could
Choose Jim or Mick or
Maybe Keith and
That would show them
While I smiled with perfect teeth
Into the cameras
Hoping all the boys
Who couldn't see me
Were watching.