Staples 35th High School reunion - The big party

10/9/09 (cont.) I drove home from the tour of Staples and found the family working in the yard. My brother said that with all the trees, leaves had to be either raked or blown 4 or 5 times a year. My niece and I raked a big pile in just 15 minutes or so and jumped in. The dog ran through the yard, playing and loving all the family's outdoor activity. Although I'd planned for my reunion dinner by packing one dress shirt and a pair of slacks, I was left with the same slacks to wear to the big Saturday night bash as I'd worn to the social at the bar on Friday. My brother offered to let me wear one of his shirts and ironed one for me. He's also retired and has an inactive dress clothes wardrobe that I also have. I wonder when in retirement we give some of that up? I have a previous blog post about the sock drawer that touches on the idea of work clothes relative to retirement. I dressed and headed back out to the big event. It was a good 30 minute drive out to a restaurant and banquet facility in the Black Rock area of Bridgeport. Although it occurred to me that it would be a long trek, the towns are all so close, and so accessible to one another that there really is nowhere that's far away. In most instances, traffic is a far greater consideration than distance. Considering that downtown Manhatten is less than an hour's drive, the extremely rural environment is quite surprising. I went into the restaurant and found my nametag. Checking in I was greeted by a dear old neighborhood classmate. We'd grown up on the same street, one block from the high school. There was a warm greeting, and again, I knew that I was on the path back to...acceptance? (I'll have to touch on that some other time.) I could recall many childhood experiences with my friend, and many of them came back to me as we chatted. I met a number of other friends from school. There were pictures of friends from during the high school years. Great memories, and also some sad ones as I saw the photos of friends who had passed away. There was a grand buffet of many of our favorite dishes. There were miniature hamburgers, ribs, pizza, roast beef, and many varied appetizers. All the food was flavorful and hot. I was happy with everything, all in all. I can't help relating one thing that happened with my friend Tim. To recall a time way back in the 70s, Tim, Eric and I were playing a game in his parents' judo studio, in a large outbuilding in the back of his yard. The entire floor was padded. The game involved chasing one another with a judo belt, looped with an end in each hand. The goal was to approach someone and loop the belt over their head, quickly get it down to their ankles, and then pull firmly, jerking the person's feet out from under them. This was a vivid memory for me as it was I whom Tim had pulled the feet out from under from. I recall gasping for breath having had the wind knocked out of me, and wondering if I was going to live. At the restaurant, this all came back to me as I saw Tim from across the room with that same mischievous grin, preparing to launch one of the Class of '74 reunion mini-frisbees to me. He was an expert and must have been practicing. The little 5 inch disk whizzed across the dining room, tilting as it passed behind the head of the homecoming queen, hovering for a moment at the scotch waved by our class president, and then landing with deft precision at my chest where I was able to fumble for a moment, and then retain my grasp on the disk with the agility of a Staples Wrecker receiver. Tim's grin was priceless. It harkened back the old days, and gave me another recollection of the humorous, laughter of innocent days passed. He could have been tossing a pinwheel, (one of the contraptions made from soldered heads of dissecting pins stolen from the Biology Department), or any of the various flying disks of torture that seemed to proliferate the high school. It was a priceless reunion for me.
I had another cheerful moment when a woman approached and asked if I remembered her having a crush on me during high-school. I grinned, remembering of course, her smiling face as she looked up at me from long ago. She had really made an impression on me, obviously. And again today, at the reunion. I asked if she'd be open to my looking her up on Facebook...and she agreed. Though so much time had passed, there was the little bit of stirring on my part that had to be pursued. There was a fair amount socializing going on, all of us arriving from various backgrounds and geographic areas. It would be something to note, that as we came from a relatively exclusive community, just how did our current lifestyles and environments give rise to the interest we took in one another. Was it so difficult to find people out there in the world that came from a similar social clime? I would venture to believe that. Westport was most certainly a unique community. Many notable celebrities were among us, as were the families we came from in addition the noteworthy individuals that chose Westport at their home. Over and over I come to believe I was privileged to have come from the time and location that I did.