way-back machine

A couple months ago, I caught wind of a gathering scheduled for today, in honor of the band director under whom I played and marched in junior high school and part of high school, Dennis Anderson. It took until today for me to decide to go.

Not that I didn't want to see Mr. Anderson, as I still address him sometimes--he was definitely one of those teachers that had a highly positive influence on my high school years.

To backtrack a bit, I'll mention that I have attended exactly one class reunion since leaving high school--the fifth. The invitation I received--later than most--showed that the organizers of the reunion had difficulty finding me (this in spite of the fact that at twenty-three I was still living in my mother's house, and had my name in the telephone book!). I spent much of that event getting drunk with people I didn't really like five years before. When the ten-year reunion was announced, I figured I could get drunk with people I hadn't liked ten years prior any night of any given week in any of several local taverns, without having to pay a then-exorbitant cover charge for the privilege.

I eventually decided that this reunion had potential to be different (in that the filters of "band members" and "band members likely to show for this sort of thing" made the above scenario far less likely, plus I didn't have to drink), and that if things weren't going to my satisfaction, I was free to leave. I figured I'd go and have a good time, or, if not, I'd leave.

There were a couple of lists going through my mind as I went to the hostess's house: The first one was of folks I hoped I'd see there, the second was of folks whose presence was of little consequence to me either way. There was a short list of folks whose presence would have had me leaving pretty soon after arriving, but I doubted any of those folks would have gone, anyway. The first two lists changed almost by the minute, with some folks moving from list to list, some joining a list and staying there, and a sizable number of folks who were out of mind altogether for one reason or another (the party was open to any who had been in the band during a ten- or twenty-year period, so I figured there were a lot of potential invitees I would have not met).

I had a good time. I saw a few folks I had no prior expectation of seeing. We chuckled about all manner of memories from that era of our lives. We felt bad that some of the folks we knew then are no longer alive to join in this sort of fun--a sobering thought to me given that I'm only fifty-one, and given that the average life expectancy is supposedly over seventy, and that some of those who have passed away have been gone for over two decades.

All in all, though, I'm glad I went. Whether having re-met some of these folks will broaden my social circle again is unclear at the moment, and I'm not really concerned about that. I may get some more work out of having had some of my business cards on hand, which is not a bad thing at all.