Hi. In case you are wondering I am doing much better today than last Thursday. As you can tell from my last blog entry it was a pretty weird day.
This past weekend I accompanied my wife to her high school reunion. Have you been to a class reunion with your spouse lately? Fun huh?
Now that I have been to a couple of reunions with my wife I of course consider myself an expert in such matters and therefore must share my considerable insights. I must have some fun with the topic of class reunions before I get to the more serious matters. Knowing me, I am sure that I will embellish it quite a bit just for effect. But you will notice that the embellishment will not cover the core truths.
It’s amazing what you see at reunions. People are nipped, tucked, lifted, padded, pulled in, pushed up, pooched out, colored, covered, or disguised – that’s just the organizing committee greeting you at the door.
After you enter the main room you are quickly swept up in a social mosh pit. People are smiling, talking, laughing and greet you like you’re an old friend while they try to discretely glance at your name tag to figure out who you are.
Once it is determined that you are not a former classmate you are quickly passed over like a wilted piece of lettuce that has been on the salad bar a bit too long while their eyes dart eagerly to something more appetizing.
Eventually the other spouses like me find themselves forced to the fringes not because of rudeness but because we are unable to compete with the energy and activity the center of the room demands.
So we stand and observe. After a bit the patterns emerge and shortly you are able to mouth the conversation from across the room. “Hi, where are you now? What have you been doing? Do you have children?” Once these questions are answered you see the mouths stop moving and the vacant stare of wondering what to talk about now. This usually occurs with those in the class that you kinda knew but had no real history to connect. I called this the Level One conversation.
If there is a history between the two classmates then a Level Two conversation ensued. This conversation starts with, “Remember when…?” If the situation being remembered is significant enough, other classmates quickly gather and join in. It sort of looked like the pigeons you see at the park swarming and jostling over the discovery of a few morsels of bread.
Before you know it a chorus of laughter breaks the air. It is almost like fireworks of emotion shooting off and exploding all over the room.
It was always interesting to observe the classmates who had a history together. But there is history and then… there is history (if you know what I mean). For example, at the first class reunion I attended with my wife all eyes were waiting to see how the Captain and quarterback of the football team and the Homecoming Queen would greet each other. They were “THE” couple in school. Would there be a spark? Would there be that “affectionate glance”?
I was interested too because I’m married to the Homecoming Queen.
Side Note: Me being married to a Homecoming Queen is a miracle in and of itself. Let me just say that if I went to my high school reunion no one would know me. Seriously, I bet there would be no more than one or two people who would remember me. No offense to the people who would remember me but they weren’t too popular themselves.
Anyway, back to the quarterback and Homecoming Queen saga. Bottom-line, it was no big deal (whew!). My point being is that you could usually tell if there was personal history either by observing the conversation between the two people or by the side conversations of others.
Now I know a lot of people who would say that they hate to go or would never go to there spouses school or family reunion.
If you are a spouse you need to read the next blog. It is for you.
See you Thursday.
