Reunion

Some events in life are by their very nature recurring.  They pass without much comment.  Others you must be fortunate to experience but could happen several times.  Grandchildren are an obvious one.  But there is at least one event that is inevitable, if of course you live long enough.

Your 50th high school class reunion.

I went to the five year reunion.  It was interesting.  Everyone looks their absolute best at about age 23.  In particular, and please bear in mind that I was then single, the girls, by then of course women, were quite presentable

Since then the reunions have been at times and places that were logistically difficult, and that is the case once again.  I'd be willing to invest an afternoon/evening in the project, but having to drive a fair distance, attend an event at an (ugh) Country Club and then stay overnight in an expensive hotel....nah.

My brother took a pass on his 50th last year.  So while we were laboring in the hot sun on the Homesteading Project it was something we discussed.  I tend to get philosophical in such matters and wondered if it would be best to attend as who you were, who you are, or who you'd like to be.  This sets aside the question of whether you "are" who you think you are or who they think you are.  I concluded that the ideal would be to attend in an entirely different persona.  Drop vague hints about your life but give few details.  Wear a fez and perhaps an eye patch.  Deflect all questions on either.

The next day while walking the dog he dragged me straight into a patch of brush and I got a minor corneal abrasion that required me to wear an eye patch for two days.  I had been given a Sign.

So, rather than devote roughly a day of my remaining span of time to satisfying mild curiosity my RSVP will consist of this letter. 

Well.  A decade here, a decade there...pretty soon we're talkin' half a century.  The time and place of the upcoming reunion being logistically challenging,  I shan't be in attendance.  Besides, Tatiana says it sounds rather boring; but she did suggest it might be possible to hire an actress to stand in for her. "Maybe somebody who could play the part of an Indiana farm girl or some such".  

I'm at one of our home bases now but have had a chance to travel widely.  Herr Kauls would be pleased that I've become sufficiently fluent in German to occasionally be mistaken for Dutch.  I've also picked up snippets of French, Italian and enough Arabic that one of my sons and I worked out a routine for getting through souks unbothered by convincing the merchants we were from a former Soviet Republic called Tegwaristan.  I've traveled by jet, ferry boat, on foot and once memorably as a hobo riding the rails.

In the course of a single unusual year I found a way to be employed as an Emergency Room doctor, a Carny, a robotics instructor and on an archaeological dig.  On expeditions of the latter sort I've found everything from intact roman shoes to live World War I artillery shells.

I've had a book published, two screen plays rejected, and am almost certainly the only alumnus of our revered Alma Mater to be invited to speak at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

It has been a fun if occasionally implausible life.  By the way, the details above are actually 84% true, which is probably a better percentage than what is traded in casual banter at surreal gatherings of people who knew each other most of a life time ago.....

Please keep me on the list for future gatherings.  'Tats' says she'll go to the 100th, and as she is scandalously younger than I she's probably good for it.  I will also plan on attending, if for no other reason than to hoist a valedictory flagon of whatever Faustian Concoction has been keeping me alive long enough to become the Last Member of the Class of 1974.

There was a return envelope with the announcement of the reunion.  No postage of course.  I'll festoon it with as many weird stamps as I can round up and put as a return address the Pilersuisiq store in Arsuk, Greenland.