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At your 50th high school
reunion, time is wasting
of TheColumnists.com
I remain a sucker for any and all reunion stories, this one most of all: My own landmark 50th year reunion of the Oakland High School class of 1955.
Thirty years ago, I would notice these little filler notices in the newspaper about some upcoming 50th reunion of the Oakland High School class of, say, 1938, and the idea struck me as a distant shore. Now, finally, those born in or around 1938 had arrived on that scary far-away beach. It was our own Twilight Zone time, a bizarre adventure into the unknown, where time refuses to stand still--no matter how damn cute you were.
There were 340 of us originally, sadly reduced now by several deaths--at least I had cheated that so far. The deceased from our school are chronicled on a Web site (many departed before turning 50). Reading the list is a pretty sobering exercise that makes you grateful to be around at all, no matter how battered, bald and pot-bellied.
Of those original 340 teenagers, 140 of the still-vertical survivors turned up at the Piedmont Veterans Hall a few weeks ago to see what time’s weapons of mass destruction had done to us. But wait a second! Piedmont? That was sort of enemy country in 1955, a land of the landed gentry, far above us feet-on-the-ground middleclass Oakies who spent five years at the “Pink Prison,” a castle-like fortress at Park & MacArthur Blvds., where we got to know each other pretty well, whether we wanted to or not.
One of the surprises is discovering how many people remember you whom you can’t recall even talking to in school. Phyllis, a kindly friend on the reunion committee told me, “More people knew you than you realize”--a surefire “It’s a Wonderful Life” hook that pulled me in when I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go, neatly sealing the deal.
Now we were back, for better or worse, comparing heart attack stories (“I didn’t even know I’d had one!”), the winner being our senior class president who had an attack during a treadmill test. My own treadmill test felt like a near-death experience. At least we were all still breathing, those of us perversely curious enough to revisit our former selves trapped in the overly elastic skin of old codgers. Talk about your out-of-body experiences.
Some reunionites were ruddy and robust, and many looked fine but bore not the slightest resemblance to the yearbook photo on their nametag. Some of the grads could not have picked themselves out of a lineup as distant cousins of their yearbook faces.
There were a few mild shockers (pompadours and crew-cuts gone bald, chubby former femmes fatale), but nothing truly grotesque. Some people looked better than they had in school. Two medical wonders were Greg, a tall, dark movie-star handsome attorney, and Kay, a white-haired double for Doris Day, only prettier, an unlined sixtysomething dazzler. That was encouraging. I just gawked at them, like figures in a wax museum come to life.
A couple of women meowed that “some of the girls clearly had a lot of work done,” but I spotted no deer-in-the-headlights stares or wind-tunnel faces. A few ex-sex kittens had morphed into sweet little white-haired ladies that I recall from my grandmother’s bridge club. Two slim Carols had become handsome suburban matrons with crinkly bronzed faces after decades of serious tennis playing and garden tending in their Orinda and Lafayette backyards.
If I appear to be dwelling disgustingly on the mere physical aspects, it’s unavoidable, because, of course, that’s what most draws us to reunions--not the opportunity to hold in-depth discussions on George Bush’s foreign trade policy. We also return to measure ourselves against preserved-in-amber teenage images, to revisit personalities dimly or vividly recalled. Much of the talk was about who wasn’t there and why and what had become of them.
So it’s about looks, for sure, but not only. I easily bonded with Roger, an avid theatergoer, whom I had known in school by name only and who appeared now with his boyfriend--ah, there was a new angle!--but nobody batted an eye or seemed to notice. One black classmate, Donna, blended in so easily that it seems silly even to mention it had she not once been more visible in our predominantly white class.
In thumbing a booklet that several classmates contributed current photos and life updates to, the average OHS class of `55 grad has been married 43 years, has two children, five grandchildren, is retired and does a lot of golfing, traveling and gardening. Not exactly riveting reading, but those are only vague smiley-face outlines (all you can squeeze into 10 lines) of what must be far more layered, difficult, interesting lives.
One guy, Bill, had been a gold miner, and one woman, Charlene, is a sex therapist; a few people had lost children. Someone else, another Roger, had been an American Airlines pilot and looked the part (steely blue eyes, iron gray hair, tanned) who had just competed in an “iron man” triathlon. One Bob was a filmmaker, a second artistic Bob was a former designer with the San Francisco Symphony. Probably the most prominent among us, Paul (Gemignani), is a well-known (in New York theatrical circles) Broadway conductor, mainly for Stephen Sondheim; in high school, he played drums in a combo. There was a preponderance of ex-nurses and teachers, with a startling number of people with great-grandchildren (now that is scary).
I was a little chagrined when someone asked me what my wife did and I could not produce one, and also failed to report a single child, let alone grandkids. I felt like a terrible shirker who had badly let down the team. While others were flashing snapshots of their grandchildren, I wanted to whip out the book jackets of a few literary offspring.
The writer present (me) was flattered to
meet classmates who had read him in the Oakland Tribune and San
Francisco Chronicle, including one classmate, Isabel, who had
even read his books. Sexy Barbara from Boston claimed, “You’re
the most famous person in the class!”--a little ink can
do wonders for one’s reputation. She recalled that he had
been a cartoonist for the school paper, The Aegis. “You
were always so clever!”
Thanks, sweetie, but where were you when I needed a date to the
prom?
Of course, reunion-goers tend to be those who presumably have
done OK--survived pretty much intact and can afford $80 for the
church social buffet dinner on paper plates that included a choice
of Bernstein salad dressings in their bottles and decaf instant
Nescafe--in its original jar (any native Piedmonters would have
fled the scene).
Dedicated OHS-ers Barbara, Lee and Nancy had flown in from, respectively, Boston, Tulsa and Palos Verdes, but everyone else was firmly, happily, snugly ensconced in the East Bay suburbs; scores of them, I suspect, had not set foot in Oakland since 1955. Conversation came unusually easy for people who hadn’t spoken to each other in half a century, and wasn’t always sure who the other person was, even if it was a little tricky summarizing 50 years of one’s life in five minutes (“So, what have you been up?” “Not much, this and that”).
I hadn’t attended an OHS reunion since 1980, our big 25th year bash, which I wrote about in the Chronicle--mainly, my delirium at being treated like an equal by the class’s acknowledged fairest girl, whose locker was below mine but whom I’d never had the nerve to talk to--which nicely sums up my high school social life. I had one date, just under the wire--the senior prom--and about 57 forlorn crushes. A woman at the reunion, who had been part of a triple-date to the prom (“Roman Holiday”), pulled out a snapshot, and there I was, in a tuxedo, with my date, who nodded off on the way home.
When my 25th year reunion column ran in The Chronicle, and I revealed my disappointment at not getting to dance with Nancy (or “Wendy” as I thinly disguised her in print) at our 25th get-together, she sweetly telegrammed a promise to save me a dance at the next reunion. So this time, when the records began, I searched the hall for her but, alas, she had departed by then, as Johnny Mathis warbled “Chances Are.” Maybe next time, at our 75th, when I’ll be 92, we can slow dance with walkers.
©2005 by Gerald Nachman. The Nachman caricature is ©2000 by Jim Hummel. The illustration includes elements from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. The logo cartoon ©2006 by Tasha Johnson. This column first posted Nov. 14, 2005.
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