Reunion

(As some of you may have noticed, we here at Bad Hat have been on vacation for the summer.  That's right, the staff and management just up and decided to take some time off, but we've now decided to get back into it.  Before we get into any political updates, allow me to share with you a remarkable event I recently experienced, an event that happens only once in a person's life.  My 50th High School Reunion.)

 I don't know why I torture myself with these high school reunions.  I graduated from South Eugene High School in 1964, a clean shaven, naive, slightly uptight young man with a severe attitude problem, hell-bent to somehow change the world.  I attended the University of Oregon for a brief time before deciding I knew everything I needed to know, then I set sail onto the river of life to find my adventures.  But Uncle Sam and Lyndon Johnson decided that my adventure would involve the adventure of Vietnam and four years in service of my country, and when I got home after that, with new wife in tow, I was a changed man.

I didn't attend my 10th Reunion.  In 1974 I had just discovered sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll, and besides, I was sure that all of my classmates were fine upstanding wealthy citizens, and I would be trampled underfoot like some prairie dog in a herd of horses.  I did, however, go to the 20th Reunion.  It was quite nice to see everyone again, and although I could sense that some of us were jockeying for position of better-than-thou, most of us just seemed happy to be there.  One of the best things that happened during that particular reunion was that I spoke to my former girlfriend, Suzanne, for the first time in almost 17 years. She was married, had children, and brought her husband along with her, so I got to meet him too.  It was excruciatingly painful, but to my credit, instead of wailing and beating my chest, I just smiled.

I attended several more reunions, and each one I went to seemed to be slightly better than the one before it.  I think that phenomena was caused by the fact that we were all growing older together, and the natural need to impress each other was fading with each advancing year.  Perhaps that's why I believe the 50th was the best reunion so far.

The reunion committee put together a photo presentation consisting of pictures of Eugene from the 1960's, along with pictures of the graduates from then and from previous reunions.  It was fascinating to watch us all grow up and older, and there were squeals of delight from the attendees over many of the pictures of old Eugene.  When watching something like that, there are two things that amaze:  How many things you've forgotten, and how many things you remember.  This reunion was held at a large ritzy hotel here in Eugene, called The Valley River Inn.  At my table, as I sat eating prime rib, our good friend Arthur, who promises to begin contributing his sage words of wisdom here at Bad Hat again, sat on my left.  On my right, sat the very lovely Suzanne, who left her husband at home this time.  For just a few moments the years were washed away, and our whole lives were once again ahead of us, and there were many more adventures to come.

JP