Back to the Future: Shaking my Booty at my High School Reunion

I recently saw a t-shirt that said, “Inside Every Old Person is a Young Person Wondering What the H**L Happened!”

The t-shirt seemed particularly appropriate after I attended my 40th high school reunion.

My high school days back the early 70s were pretty painful. Socially, I was a shy, self-conscious kid who only had a few friends. Now I realize that, from the outside, I probably looked more together than I felt, but from my perspective, apart from good grades, I pretty much failed at everything.  I failed when I tried out for cheer leading. And I failed when I auditioned for the school play because I was so nervous that I sang one of the worst renditions of Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” ever!  By the time I finished that song, the audience must have been longing for the sound of silence because my singing was horrible as well as horribly LOUD. Somehow, I suffered from the deluded notion that singing louder could overcome my tremulous hesitancy, but instead, I just made others suffer from my high-decibel, screech-like “singing.”

Such were my embarrassing high school memories.

Now fast-forward 40 years. I get an invitation via Facebook to my 40th high school reunion and I’m flabbergasted that 40 years have flown by.

To provide some background, I went to a Chicago public high school that wasn’t exactly high falutin’ even then and it’s even less so now.  An anniversary booklet distributed by reunion organizers featured the most “famous” and successful Steinmetz alumni, including a fashion designer who was best known as a Playboy model and, without a doubt, our most famous alum of all time, Mr. Playboy patriarch himself, Hugh Hefner.  Apparently, interests other than academics flourished at my high school. 

Nowadays, from what I hear, you have to pass through a metal detector to even gain entry to Steinmetz and the place has the feel of a federal prison, which is perhaps appropriate since prison is not a totally unfamiliar destination for numerous Steinmetz alumni.

It reminds me of that scene in the movie Back to the Future, where Marty McFly goes back in time and, because he knows the future, he tells a baby in a playpen to “Get used to those bars, kid.”

For the most part, since I flew under the radar in high school, I didn’t know if anyone would even remember me, unless they were among the unfortunate few that had been subjected to my “Sound of Silence” audition, in which case, the aural assault would no doubt be unforgettable. Thus, the invitation brought out a number of conflicting emotions for me, not the least of which was the fear of, once again, feeling like a socially ostracized failure.

Still, there was the possibility that I could reconnect with the few friends that I had, as well as a desire to view high school from my current lens as a fulfilled adult. I’ve now lived long enough that I’m not as desirous of  group approval. On some level, I think that I wanted to assert my confidence and let those who had once intimidated me know that they could no longer make me tremble – or could they?  I wanted to know.

At the same time, I now see things differently and realize that most of my former insecurities were of my own making. I wondered how I would interact with those same people from the perspective of a mature, confident fellow survivor of life’s vicissitudes. Even if no one remembered me, I could have a nice meal, hang out with my husband, and visit with my Mom in Chicago. Plus, I was just curious.

So, off to my high school reunion I went.

Forty years is a long time, but it sneaks up on you. A 40th high school reunion is not unlike a senior prom for real seniors, or at least people who are old enough to get the senior discount at Denny’s Restaurant. We’re old enough to have grandchildren and many do. Perhaps most strikingly, forty years ago, we all had luxuriant, flowing 70s hair.  Now, that hair is often sparse, gray or nonexistent.  I was prepared for that. 

But I wasn't prepared for the mind-bending time loop of running into people I had known back in grade school – people like Mike H., Carol W. and Karen K., all of whom I remember fondly. When I was growing up with that crowd I was so innocent that I was just beginning to learn the meaning of cuss words. We were still experiencing growing pains and learning to do cartwheels. Now, we’re more likely to have lower back pain and remembering to take our cholesterol meds.

Overall, I was impressed by how well most of my fellow survivors had fared. There is probably a bit of self selection in who attends a high school reunion.  After all, if someone is doing terribly or looks terrible, they probably aren’t going to have the drive or motivation to attend. But overall, I thought that most of us looked pretty good for having endured four decades. I was impressed by the generally positive, unpretentious attitudes of those I encountered and I felt connected by culture, era and shared history. These were my PEEPS!

My husband Vince and I definitely had fun at the reunion. We love to dance so we danced up a storm.  People who didn’t remember me or who remembered me as a wall flower were probably wracking their brains to figure out who I was, but I knew that those kids from grade school remembered.  And I knew that Linda P., who grew up on the same block, remembered.

Still, I wonder what it will be like in another 10 years.  Or 20 years, if we make it.

My 87-year-old mother tells a story about how she and my father had a great time at her 50th high school reunion.  There was a great crowd, a great meal, a band and dancing.  So they went back for the 60th reunion. “That must have been when people started dying off,” she recalled, “because there was a much smaller crowd and a DJ instead of a band.”  Still, they went back for the 65th reunion, for which there was a definitely downsized venue and only a smattering of attendees.  And instead of a band or a DJ, the entertainment consisted of one accordion player.

The image of one accordion player performing for a smattering of aged former high school students is hilariously pathetic and, let’s all face it, we’re all inevitably headed for that same downsized reunion with a roving accordion player, or even worse, maybe a kazoo or performing monkey.

Reunions are great because they help you to put things in perspective in a fun way – kind of like attending a funeral but with an open bar. I only drink moderately, which is a good thing, because I definitely did not want to hear the next day that I did something crazy like get up on a table and sing “The Sound of Silence.”  Been there, done that (just kidding – sort of.)

I’m up for attending my 50th reunion, Lord willing. But I think I’ll call it quits before I have to hit the dance floor with a walker or endure a solo accordion serenade.  And judging by how fast the past has flown, that day will probably arrive before I know it.

Simon and Garfunkel reprise their song for a concert in Central Park in 1981. Believe me, you don't want to hear me reprise my version.

                                   Me with Karen, an old pal from grade school, at the reunion. She's the mother of seven children, whom she home schooled, and in my opinion, that makes her way more successful than Hugh Hefner.

Up the Down Escalator in High Heels - My Travels and Travails on the DC Metro/Transportation System

When the DC Metro works, it’s a marvel.  You can cut through backed up traffic, relax, read, people watch, listen to music and pay less for parking at the Metro station than you would downtown. It’s not the cleanest venue and the parking garage stairwells always smell like urine, but it’s cleaner than New York’s subway and at least the trains don’t smell like urine – sometimes there’s a faint smell of vomit, but I don’t think that I’ve ever smelled urine on the trains, which is pretty amazing considering that bathrooms in a Metro station are rare and often locked.  At least people wait until they make it to the parking garage.

But almost a quarter of the times that I ride the trains, there is some kind of snafu and several times those snafus have escalated into major events, like the time that the “derecho” storm went though and left my husband and I stranded at the Twinbrook station unable to get home for the night.  We ended up spending the night at a hotel that had no power, guided only by the light of our slowly fading cell phones. The Hyatt Hotel charged us $100 to stay there, even though they had no power, but they had to write down our credit card number old-school style on a piece of paper.

Another time, I was cooped up in a Metro train with broken air conditioning in about 100 degree heat, sweat pouring down my back, seriously afraid that I would pass out and they’d have to peel me off the train floor like stepped-on, flattened out gum residue.

Most recently, my husband Vince and I decided to try taking the Metro and then hooking up with a shuttle to travel to Wolf Trap to see the Johns Butler Trio perform.  The Metro ride went fine.  When we got on the shuttle, a man stood in front of the bus and gave a little speech.  “We will leave exactly 20 minutes after the show ends,” he said, repeating that line about three times. -- OK, I’ve got it -- Then, almost as an aside and in an accented voice, he said something about 11 o’clock or 11:30.  I didn’t quite make out what he said but I figured that it was irrelevant since the show started at 7 and we’d be out of there before 11 or 11:30.

The John Butler Trio was great, even though I felt conspicuously old compared to the rest of the audience. But I was surprised that the performers seemed blasé about an encore, and as we packed up and headed for the bus, something didn’t feel right.  We saw a long line for the bathroom and congratulated ourselves on our foresight in preparing to leave promptly without having to wait in line.  “We know how to do it,” we assured each other, nodding sagely.  “Yeah, that’s right. We’ve done this enough that we’re pros, as opposed to these young whippersnapper concert-goers, who are just novices.”

We were first in line for the bus but the drivers, who were socializing and eating Indian food out of Styrofoam containers, looked at us strangely.  “It can’t be over yet,” they said. “They told us it wouldn’t be over until 10:55.  It must be intermission.”  But hadn’t we seen the John Butler road crew dismantling the stage?  Could it be that they were just the warm up act?

So we headed back to the entryway and, sure enough, part two featured a group we had never heard of called Soja, a white reggae band from Virginia, who had drawn a sold out crowd that included friends and family from nearby VA.

So it turns out that we weren’t so sage and experienced after all.  In fact, we were dunces, who weren’t even familiar with the headlining group we were about to see.

At the end of the energetic, peace-and-love-and-ganja and yeah-it’s-the-young-people-who-are-gonna’-change-the-world concert (as if no other generation had ever thought that way) we wrapped up promptly, with the warning that the bus would leave in 20 minutes ringing in our ears.  We made it out to the bus location about seven minutes after the show ended, and at exactly 11:01 p.m., we saw the shuttles taking off.

“NOOOO!” I cried, my hand reaching out in disbelief as I breathed bus fumes.  How could they be leaving so soon?  Surely, there must be another shuttle coming!  But there were no other shuttles.

To make matters worse, a wasted guy who saw us out of the corner of his eye decided to loudly focus his attention on us in an embarrassing way that emphasized the disparity in our ages.  “Oh MAN,” he hollered sloppily.  “I TRIED to get my PARENTS to come but they said they couldn’t make it through such a looong concert.  But here you are – people your age can DO it –  the PROOF is in the PUDDING!”  He continued, “You know, what does that mean, the proof is in the pudding?  I’ve always heard that expression but what does it REALLY mean- that the proof is in the pudding?”

I could feel people looking at us and I felt peeved enough that had pudding been available, I might have shoved the proof right in his face. Or, if I had been calm enough to think about it, I might have responded in a way that would befuddle his alcohol and ganja-addled mind with an attempt at a clever retort, such as:

“It’s an expression that recognizes the inherent ability of substances to change their chemical composition and consistency when acted upon by an outside source at sufficiently high temperatures over a measured period of time.  It’s an expression  that recognizes the human propensity to doubt that  physical properties can change dramatically, but the gradual thickening of the pudding provides evidence that such changes can, indeed, occur, thereby also casting doubt upon other human doubts. And once you start doubting doubt, you’re in radical danger of actually becoming a believer, so watch out!”

Yeah, I think I could have blown his mind.

As it was, I just fumed and we trudged along to the Ranger’s Station to ask what to do and the ranger offhandedly recommended that we call a cab as he turned his attention to summoning assistance to break up a fight that had erupted among the crowd that was as ganja and alcohol-soaked as you might expect at a reggae concert.  Under such circumstances, “Peace, bro’” can easily morph into “I’m gonna’ #@$%!, you %!@#$!”

Vince called a cab company but they told us that it could take 40 minutes for them to show up and it was already 11:15 p.m.  I knew that, on week nights, the last scheduled Metro train traveled around midnight and we needed to make a connection.  There seemed to be little way that we could make it in time and the ranger station had started filling up with others who were in the same predicament.

“Didn’t they say they left 20 minutes after the show ended?” someone asked, mystified.  “Yes, but I think that they also said 20 minutes after the show ended OR 11 p.m., whichever came first,” I replied.  “At least that’s sure how it appears.”

I tried calling Yellow Cab and they estimated 15-20 minutes, which was more reasonable than the other company but still dicey. Two other guys asked to share our cab and we agreed.

We made our way to the front by the road, near the Wolf Trap marquee.  Clusters of other abandoned people were also waiting for a cab and one was on her phone, loudly complaining about having waited for an hour, which was clearly a lie since the concert hadn’t even been over that long.  Sure, during the concert it was all peace and love and ganja, but once the cab grab competition commenced, the claws came out it became a battle for survival, deviousness and all.

Yellow cabs started showing up and people swarmed to them, with the fastest and most aggressive winning out.  A cab came that could have been the one I called but I heard a would-be rider plead with a driver, “Please, I’ll pay you 40 dollars,” and I lost out.

My husband and I decided to split up with me taking the front guard, going as far forward as possible, and him taking up the rear guard near the marquee, where we had told the cab we would be.  By now I knew that someone must have grabbed the cab that had been summoned for me and I wanted to get to the front of the waiting area. Avoiding eye contact, I moseyed to the front until I approached a fortified cluster of about six people who I knew were younger and more aggressive than me.  I didn’t want another fight to break out so acquiesced and I let them take the next cab.

Another cab came and I nearly jumped in front of it until he stopped. I climbed in, feeling like a celebrity in a limo, gliding past the paparazzi, as I directed the driver past the other waiting clusters and picked up my crew – Vince and the two other guys with whom we had agreed to share a ride.

Still, we were in quite a pickle.  Even if the cab could get us to the green line before the bewitching hour, we still were likely to miss our connection to the red line.  We drove downtown with our co-riders with the aim of catching the last red line train. As it turns out,  we missed the midnight train but managed to catch the unadvertised post-midnight train that picks up stragglers, now off-duty Metro workers, and other assorted denizens of the night who probably don’t have to get up to go to work the next morning.

During one other Metro debacle, with swarms of people pressing in on me and no trains in sight, I had an overwhelming urge to escape but the only escape route was a down escalator and I need to go up.  So up the down escalator I went in high heels.  It’s not something that I recommend, and I almost tripped and fell, but I did prove that someone my age can do it.  Someone with a compulsion to escape the teeming hordes can reverse course, outpace a machine, and make her way to freedom. In fact, you might say that the proof is in the pudding.