The Class of '61

Any class reunion that is not your own is the best class reunion.  Generally not much is asked of the spouse, at least directly, and one's emotional detachment from the proceedings allows for amusing character studies.

Or a license to ignore it all and play Hearts on your iPhone.

But I'm not that certain old man I observed, playing electronic cards from under the tablecloth. I thought that after fifty-five years it was high time my husband went to a class reunion.  So did certain 'girls' who have found him on Facebook in the last few years.  Never mind that he didn't remember any of them.  His memory of high school is simply sitting in classes and working late after school.

"I don't remember anyone."

"But they'll remember you."

I suppose that is not at all reassuring, having people blab at you that you have no recollection of at all.  At first my husband, in his typically frank fashion, simply used this broad truth when he was at a loss on how to respond, but more often than not there was at least a mutual memory to spin off of.  Or deadly curiosity.

Well, I set up that scenario.  I suggested matching shirts that my husband had sewn us several years ago.  Black and tan, with a pattern silhouette of a cowboy and his dog.  Blue jeans.  I wore my boots, which make me about ten inches taller than he is---and taller than most any other man in the room, even if I'm only five-ten without heels.  We entered the restaurant, and above the roar of the crowd came a squeal of delight from across the room.  A pretty lady edged her way towards us, looking much like her 1961 self featured on the name card on her chest.

The shirts in a different setting.

"I'm so glad you two came!" she said, giving us both a big hug.  I knew more or less what the girls on Facebook looked like, and she was not one of them.  In fact she never knew of my husband in high school, but she obviously knew who we were.

"How long have you two been together?"

We told her nineteen years, and that we had drove all the way from California for this occasion.

"California!  You know, as soon as my son graduated from high school, he went straight to California.  What else could he do in 1981?"

I thought there were plenty of closer escape routes in 1981---Boston, New York---but I suppose San Francisco is about the farthest away one can get from a New England mill town.

"Are you on Facebook?" she asked.

"Yes, are you?"

"No, but my son is!  His name is --- "  She had to have been voted the sweetest girl in high school.  Alas, we did not have a yearbook in hand to check on my intuition, but I did take his name down and contacted him on Facebook, joking you know how mothers are.

Another woman called our attention and took our picture from about ten feet away.  As far as I know, my husband never got to talk to her.

Our go-to Facebook girl escorted us to a small table we were to share with her husband.  He was of the small fireplug French farmer type, not handsome but nice looking with a complexion that made him look at least ten years younger.  We took an immediate liking to him, and the feeling was mutual.  Since his wife was on the reunion planning committee, he had been put in charge of the scholarship fundraiser raffle, a task he didn't seem to begrudge a bit.  This is not the first marriage for either one, and there was a sense of honoring each others efforts.  We bought tickets.

There was a man on the reunion planning board that was even more gaga over us than Her Sweetness.  He was yet another man with a good complexion, although not as firmly planted on his face.  His wavy white hair hovered around his head like a halo, giving him a spinster's air. I kept imagining his 'do cropped on the sides, the wave saucy on his forehead, as he kept touching us, hugging us.  Finally he passed by my seated husband again and kissed him on top of his head.  He was that happy that there was an out gay couple at the reunion he helped planned.  We got his story in bits and pieces,  mostly in the present tense: Senior housing, not out in that setting.  Besides the planning group, his church seemed to be his only social venue: "They're very accepting." The pianist for this occasion was the church pianist---a gay teddy bear, a very good player but totally unnecessary in the din.

Oh, the teacher that got arrested for improprieties with male students had to be discussed:

"I hated him," my husband said.

"Oh, I had a crush on him," mused the spinster.  "He gave me a ride once.  Just a few blocks ... "

It seemed the spinster's life had only gone a few blocks in any direction.

Drizella, unseated.

There were people of interest we never met.  One was Cinderella's Wicked Stepsister, Drizella.  She was the spitting image of that Disney character, and she was spitting mad that someone took the seat she has saved at a large table.  She raged at her husband over the indignity of it all, secretly aware that it had been done on purpose.  No one wanted to sit next to her.

Drizella's husband had a similarly long upper lip, but it was not set in umbrage like his wife's, but for the fact that he had very long chest hair that had wandered up his neck like Boston Ivy.  His nose was simply trying to escape the indignity of it all.  I suspect he felt this strange lack of grooming was his one personal victory over Drizella, never realizing that it pleased her by giving her something else to bitch about.

Actually, Mr. Drizella did come up to us with an inquiry.  Unfortunately, my husband was pleasantly occupied with someone else, so I had to field the question.

"My wife wants to know why you're wearing matching shirts."

I regarded him with a mixture of diffidence and disdain:  "Because we came together."

This didn't seem to make sense to him.  Too bad my husband was unavailable.  He would have simply said because we're married and watch Drizil get all flustered.  Ask me a personal question, and you'll get a personal answer.  I can't wait to be old enough not to give a shit.

"What's the pattern?"  As if it was cryptic or something.

I looked down, my hand smoothing my view.  "A cowboy.  And his dog."

I looked back up at him coolly, and having sensed he'd get nothing more from me, Drizil wandered back to Drizella to file his report.

A tiny woman then came up to inspect our shirts.  She was a seamstress, so apparently she had the right to do so.  Her own costume were expertly tailored, but not timeless.  Her brown A-line skirt that reached just below her knees and fussy patterned blouse screeched 1977.  Her cute little body and unlined face would have been a knockout in a dark sheath dress, but it was plain to see that she had no idea on how to be anything but dowdy.  She grabbed my wrist to inspect my cuffs, ran her fingers over the yoke and turned out the collar at my throat.  She pronounced all to be very good.

"And you're from California, so you can name your price," she said, turning to my husband.  "I gave up sewing garments.  People here pay more for slipcovers than wedding dresses."

In my telling you may think this reunion was full of seventy-three-year-olds fresh from frolicking in the the fountain of youth, despite their shortcomings in personal style, but there were indeed some gargoyles of both sexes, as well as people who looked fabulous yet old.

The buffet meal was fantastic, especially considering that the whole shindig cost only $25 a head.  My twentieth had cost $60 apiece for crappy food and a crappier d.j.  My thirtieth didn't even happen because of indecisive egos.  Obviously our parents have better budgetary skills---and they know how to K.I.S.S. and make up.

A man paused at our table.  His beauty had gone a bit pudgy, but that only made him look fifteen years younger.

"I saw you two eating breakfast this morning.  I was at Jean's, too, with some friends."

I had a vague recollection of him, sitting nearby with several men of similar eye appeal.  We were all dressed more casual at the time, so we had caught his eye even without the shirts.  He now looked a bit senatorial in a jacket and tie.

"Where are you staying?" He seemed to be following his intuition.

"Motel 6," we answered unabashedly.

"So am I," he replied, not so relaxed over that declasse fact.  "I have my new cocker spaniel with me, and as you know, that's about the only place that's pet friendly. What room are you in?"

"123."

"117," he chuckled.

He seemed reluctant to go more into depth, so he simply laid his hand softly on my shoulder and then moved on.  However, this was not the last my husband saw of him.

It was time for the raffle, and Facebook Girl really needed a cigarette.

"I'm taking your husband out into the parking lot with me," she growled in my ear.  "I need to talk to him.  You have the raffle tickets..." she added, as half an apology.

"Don't worry about me, dear," I replied, patting her arm.

Sitting alone at the table, the subject of idle speculation around the room, was slightly unnerving.  My tickets and my glass of water were my only props.  I didn't win the box of taffy, the coffee mug and other silly prizes---and the grand prize, announced at the last minute as $290 cash---went to Drizil!  I'm sure it was the D's social score of the decade.

Long after the raffle had ended my husband finally reappeared. He assured me that my patience would be rewarded: "Have I got some stories to tell you later."

I told him about the D's social triumph.

"So that's why Drizella was so happy when she reached out and said hello to me when I came back in," my husband mused wryly.

As I mentioned earlier, this is not Facebook Girl's first marriage.  Her husband has children from a previous marriage, the youngest a son about five years younger than myself.  This son came out to his mother and brother and was very poorly received, so he was terrified of coming out to his father.  Facebook Girl convinced him that Dad would be alright with it, and he was and is very supportive of his son.  Perhaps to a fault, for the son has a penchant for Puerto Ricans and makes life decisions based on his loins, so they've had to bail him out several times.  "And we're too old to bail him out anymore."  So, upon hearing at the table of my husband's semi-retired drug rehab therapist status, I imagine Facebook Girl was eager to vent a story not many people care to hear, and to discuss strategy.

The simple fact that his son was gay had come up at the table.  "I just wish he'd find someone nice," Dad had said, glancing over at me.  "It's tough to grow old alone."  His tenderness expressed was now tempered by my knowledge of his fear and frustration of maybe not being able to help his son again.

The man who saw us at breakfast was out in the parking lot, too.  After Facebook Girl was finished, he still lingered, so my husband approached him.

"So," the man began.  "How long have you been out of the closet?"

And so two late bloomers compared notes.  Although this man had numerous affairs in high school.

The Boy Most Likely

"He was VIP in school," my husband recalled.  "Handsome, smart, popular, involved in many clubs.  The Boy Most Likely."

So to speak ...


Mr. VIP named the names of the dead he had done in high school, but was otherwise polite.  "Several are here, after all," he demurred.  "With their wives."  So he was a gentlemen in a precarious retro social position, and thus very discreet.  I wondered if I had had such an illustrious high school career that I would ever go back, although I guess he was also reliving the secret thrill of it all.  And obviously he still had friends locally, judging by the boys at breakfast.  Of course I cannot be sure they're 'boys', but they all seemed pretty much peas in a pod---poised, restrained.  Although Mr. VIP now lived in the Big City, there was something unworldly about him, that despite his sexy past he was perhaps closer to the aforementioned Spinster's life than one can readily imagine.

Being an afternoon event in a restaurant, the reunion promptly began to unravel within a couple of hours.  We lingered, among the last to leave as the dinner reservations started arriving.  The ladies leaving remembered my husband from grammar school, the old neighborhood, the grocery store he worked at---or simply said you're cuter now than you were in high school.  So true of many of us who suffered At Seventeen.

"So, are you coming to the sixtieth?" asked Facebook Girl.

"Yes," my husband grinned.  "I think we will."

"Good!"

"Good!" I echoed.  "That means a a new pair of matching shirts for us!"