Over Thanksgiving weekend, I had more than turkey. In the
interest of full disclosure, I did not have turkey. I dislike turkey, because hate
seems too strong a word. Let’s just say I’m not a friend of that fowl unless
they’re wild and I see a flock of them running through the woods. What we ate
on Thanksgiving was Rock Cornish Game hens; one bird per person, which
eliminates that awful carving bit. I washed and seasoned the birds early in the
morning before attending the Native American All-Faith’s Thanksgiving service at
the Katonah Methodist Church. After the service, Mr. Sax and I hopped in the
car and headed over to the Saw Mill Cinemas to catch the matinee of “Skyfall,”
the new James Bond film. The story is just short of ridiculous. Who would go to
all that trouble over misplaced Oedipal rage? But none of that mattered because
“Skyfall” was beautifully shot and chock a block with heart stopping action,
and Bond’s suits were exquisitely tailored. There was a lot of chatter when the
film first came out about the suits being too tight. And they were tight,
enough to show off calf muscle and bicep. The Huffington Post bitched that
Daniel Craig’s specially tailored Tom Ford’s suits made a mockery of Sean
Connery’s iconic sartorial style, but I beg to differ. Roger Stone, the author
of the Huff Post piece, dared to call Bond’s suit a “bum freezer,” a phrase
popularized during World War II when there were fabric shortages. Ahem. After
the film, we retired to our cozy house and got the wood burning stove going
before sitting down to our delicious Cornish hens. I’m so done with turkey.
Never again.
On Saturday night my spouse, and this was very brave of him,
agreed to chauffeur and accompany me to my high school reunion, held in Woodbury,
N.J. Although many people know I lived in Atlantic City for years, I attended
junior and senior high school in this small south Jersey city. My mother, who
attended Woodbury High School herself, had her own business there.
Nobody I know now wants to believe I am as old as I am,
which I chalk up to a case of chronic immaturity that keeps me young thinking.
But I graduated high school in 1972, the same year the British Army slaughtered
14 unarmed nationalist civil rights marchers in Derry, Ireland on Bloody
Sunday; a coal sludge spill killed 125 people in West Virginia; an avalanche
killed 19 people climbing Mount Fuji; and the Watergate break-in. 1972 had
great fashion, but was a rough year. In those days I chose to ignore headlines,
preferring to focus on mini skirts, hot pants, and maxi coats. I was grateful
for my school’s policy to let you stop taking math courses after Algebra II, leaving
me time to take the electives I really wanted, public speaking and creative
writing.
The reunion itself was low-key. When my husband asked if
there would be a walk down memory lane slide show, I could barely contain my
laughter. No, I said. There will be an open bar and dinner and then a DJ and
dancing. Those who will attend (and it was not a large number) will want to
look at and talk to each other. And that’s exactly what happened.
As is to be expected, some people looked great. Others less
so. One man had to tell me who he was because without the gorgeous mop of hair
that once flopped over his forehead, I failed to recognize him. Some of the
women really looked like their moms. My graduating class was small and
sustained 6 deaths. Half my class was African American but none of them came to
the reunion. I wonder if they had somewhere a reunion of their own.
The most surprising thing I learned was that many of the men
have retired from their work. Not so the women, a large number of whom grew up
to become nurses and who still love and want their jobs. A couple of the guys I
hung out with as a teen told me they have second homes in Florida, enabling
them to play golf year-round. I guess if your house in south Jersey was so
reasonably priced that long ago you paid off the mortgage, you could go out
after 30 years on a pension from your job at DuPont or Sunoco to play golf for
the rest of your life. Interesting. I might be jealous.
The takeaway from my reunion (and don’t you hate that
phrase, even though like “right, right,” we all use it?) is that I’m glad I
went. I’m proud of my fellow, former classmates. I think we’ve turned out
pretty nice. Of course there have been difficulties, trials, and hard times.
Parents dying slowing from ALS. Divorce and other loss. The town of Woodbury
itself, once solidly middle class and prosperous, has fallen on hard times. But
talking to my classmates, I learned there have been a multitude of triumphs,
both professional and personal.
“We were good kids,” one man said to me, rehashing for a
moment our reckless youth. Again, in the interest of full disclosure, my house
was the party house. Sure, there were a couple of high school pregnancies
(birth control was hard to get), and a handful of people were starting their
careers as alcoholics or otherwise going off the rails. And of course there was
the draft and the looming specter of Vietnam. But we were good kids and we
turned out to be good adults. Congrats again to the Class of ’72. It was great
seeing you all.
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