Monday, July 15, 2013

Through the Years. . .

Went Up North a couple weekends ago, to my hometown of Alpena, for my 40th-anniversary class reunion (just for the record, I am nowhere near old enough for it to have been 40 years since I graduated from high school; actually, I graduated while I was still in utero).  What a wonderful time!  We all (at least, everyone I talked to) (even the two women who showed up rocking a serious 80s-era spiked-hair-and-eyebrow-piercings punk look) just had a great time catching up on where we've been and what we've been up for the past few decades.

Alpena is a somewhat different place than it was when I lived there.  They actually have a Taco Bell there now, whereas in my day, I had to go to the big university downstate to have my first actual taco.  And there's a mall on the edge of town now, which houses all the stores that used to be downtown.  Downtown, on the other hand, has taken on a decidedly touristy/artisan feel.  We dropped in on a T-shirt shop (one of my favorites pronounced, "Lake Huron: Unsalted and Shark-Free"), and a local wine shop, selling locally-grown-and-produced wines.  In my day, we barely knew what Boone's Farm was, much less a late-harvest Riesling, and now there's a vineyard down by Ossineke, fer heaven's sake.  But the miniature-golf place is still there, down by the beach, and Jen and I played a nostalgic round (well, it was nostalgic for me); I shot four-over-par, which ain't too bad for playing the course no more often than once a decade. . .

The proceedings started with an informal picnic Friday night.  The 'informal' part meant that there were no name-tags, so, at least early on, there was a lot of staring at faces, trying to place this or that familiar feature, until the person finally had mercy and told you who they were (of course, many of us were accompanied by our spouses, and one smart-aleck said that they should have had tags saying, "Stop staring; I'm a spouse").

As I said, we had a really great time catching up on the last few decades; we hadn't had a reunion since the 25th, so many of us were seeing each other for the first time in at least 15 years (and I wanna tell ya, the difference between 43-year-olds and 58-year-olds is a significant one).  One of my best buds from high school came for the first time since the 10-year reunion, and it was just great to see him; he won the prize for who came the farthest to the 10-year reunion, because he was deported from South Africa the week before the reunion.

Of course, I have several friends with whom I've been at least somewhat in touch ever since graduation, but there are a few of my classmates with whom I've become better friends over the past four decades than we ever were in school, which is kinda cool.

So yeah, we had a great time.  Maybe I just have a really great class; lots of my friends have no interest in going to their class reunions, or if they've gone to one, they were put off from ever going back.  But I've gone to all of mine, and had a wonderful time at every one of them. . .

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Jen's brother got married for the second time last weekend, at a park over in Port Huron.  The county judge who performed the ceremony was a tall, somewhat severe-looking woman, who looked very stately in her robe.  At one point, she moved her leg just so, and I espied what looked like an ankle-bracelet.  I mentioned the ankle-bracelet to Jen's brother later, and he just laughed, saying, "Uh, no. . . that would be her electronic tether; she's been convicted of DUI three times, but she still manages to keep getting re-elected. . ."

A judge with an electronic tether. . . Only in America. . .

10 comments:

  1. I'm glad ya had a good time at the reunion, Craig. I see that as one of the biggest bennies of having roots, and that's a good thing.

    I've never been to a class reunion, one of the main reasons being that I transferred into my sixth high school mid-way thru my senior year. So: no ties, none at all.

    In re: the judge with the e-tether. THAT is rich!

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    1. We moved around a whole bunch, until I was in 6th grade. Then we stayed put until I graduated, and when I went to college, the rest of the family absconded to another state, where they pretty much stayed put for 35 years. . . Myself, I've owned three houses, all within about a three-block radius. . .

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  2. I have only attended one of my class reunions, the fiftieth.
    On the other hand I have attended at least three of GS's class reunions... in Michigan

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    1. I have great sympathy, bordering on admiration, for people who go to their spouses' class reunions. Jen just doesn't want anyone to think I'm the sort of guy who goes to reunions without his wife. . .

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  3. I'm with you in enjoying my reunions and helped plan the 25th. I think my class of 300 was a great group and the majority were there like me, K-12, so ties run deep. I've always taken a bit of comfort in how people don't change, no matter their station or where life has taken them. And if they have changed, it's for the better.

    OTOH, my spouse won't go to his anymore because he says that no one has changed.....they still all smoke pot and play golf! LOL

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    1. Well, we're grayer and balder and some of us are fatter than in our school days. But it is quite cool, how we just fell right back into the comfort zones of each other's personalities, even if we hadn't seen each other for decades. . .

      And there's something a little less cool about 58-year-old tokers, knowwhatImean?

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  4. I've never been to a reunion- as far as I know, our class only had one, the 10th, and that was 20 years ago- but I doubt I'd go anyway; the only person I had any connection to, is still my best friend and we talk often so I've not missed them.

    The judge with the tether made me laugh out loud, literally.

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    1. Re the tethered judge - I go back and forth between 'hilarious' and 'pathetic'. . . 'Hilariously pathetic', maybe. . .

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  5. well, I'm glad you have a bunch you can enjoy. Queenie rather enjoys hers as well.

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    1. Well, you know, Alpena is pretty isolated from the rest of civilization; our options were kinda limited. . .

      ;)

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