Historical September 1991 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Rule #1 was “You have to wear your wedding ring.” That’s what my first wife kept telling me as we drove down the highway.
In fact, for a change I was wearing the wedding ring, but maybe she thought I’d slip it in a pocket or swallow it.
We had had this conversation about the wedding ring several times already, ever since the invitation arrived.
The ring was on my hand, making a metallic tap-tap-tap sound as I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, keeping time with a Fleetwood Mac tape.
The wife was too nervous to notice whether or not I was wearing it or listen to the music.
She just kept readjusting her lipstick in the rearview mirror, a mobile artist on 1-55.
We were driving to South County for her Twenty-fifth High School Reunion.
She was an Affton High Cougar, and we were returning to Mecca. Rule #2, she kept telling me. was “You have to behave yourself.” Whatever that meant. Neither the first wife nor I really knew what that meant although it was a rule that she cited often.
I generally heard this whenever we went somewhere “nice” (defined as a place that used cloth napkins).
If the napkins were paper, I could be myself. That lack of consensus about what behaving myself meant didn’t stop her, however, from making me promise to do it or me from agreeing to go along with her demand. Actually, I viewed this lack of understanding as an advantage.
It was like a speed limit sign with no number: “But officer, how could I be speeding when there was no miles-per-hour limit?” and “But honey, how could I behave myself when we didn’t really agree on what that meant?” I’m always amazed at that aspect of the human condition which causes us to inflict pain upon ourselves.
I mean, life is hard enough without us making it any more difficult.
But we do. Inevitably we do. You know, we eat things that are tasty but bad for us, like corndogs and Twinkies and Midnight Pizzas and M&Ms. And we drink too much. And we date and marry people who aren’t good for us. And we smoke cigars. And we drive without seatbelts in bad neighborhoods when it’s dark. None of these foolish acts compares, however, with returning to the scene of the crime, going to one’s high school reunion. Thomas Hardy and Cher Bono were right; You CAN’T go home again. And if you choose to do so, you’ll deserve what you get. Who would want to see people that they’ve not seen for twenty-five years? Worse, who would want to actually spend time and talk with them?
When last seen in Affton High, back in 1966, these people were covered with acne, polyester, high hopes, and naivete. Now, driving down the highway, all of that was gone, I was sure, except probably the polyester. “How do I look?” the first wife asked in the semi-darkness of the car. “Just great honey,” I said, “just great.” “But really, how do I look?” she implored. ‘Better than Eisenhower!” I said, and she nodded and smiled, not listening. “I wonder if anyone will remember me,” she said, talking to herself more than me. “Will you remember them?” I asked. “No,” she replied, “but that’s different.” “Right, I gotcha, makes lots of sense!” I said quickly. I’ve learned when to agree even if I don’t understand. It’s my Rule #12 for a Happy Marriage. Breakfast discussions are a lot easier when you recognize that the goals are keeping the cornflakes from getting soggy and parting on good terms, not communicating.
I knew we were at the right place when I pulled into the Holiday Inn parking lot and saw the herd of pick-up trucks.
It got worse. Almost all of the vehicles that weren’t pick-ups were 4-wheel drives, and most had gunracks in the back windows. I’d never seen a Volkswagen with a gunrack before. Must’ve been an upward mobile Afftonite who married a Hazelwood graduate, I thought. Remember those girls we all had class with back in high school who always said, “Oh, I didn’t know anything, I’m sure I failed this,” when tests were being returned, and then always got an “A” on the test? Those girls were at the reunion and they had brought their high school yearbooks with them. Of course.
They looked exactly the same, it’s even possible they were wearing the same clothes: out of style then and out of style now. And it’s not easy for something to stay out of style for 25 years!
They were standing at the door, cooing together and rifling through the pages, trying to figure out who everyone was—or had been—as people entered the dining room.
It made me wish that I had a test paper with a 63 on it to return to them. Things weren’t a whole lot better once we got inside.
A big banner covered with yellow and purple balloons said WELCOME CLASS OF ’66! Hunting, as I always do in a big crowd, for the sources of power, I immediately went to the bar where I was confronted with the fact that a beer cost $2.65. Can you believe it? TWO DOLLARS AND SIXTY-FIVE CENTS for a Budweiser? So much for the naivete of ’66! Fortunately I had a traveler’s check left from vacation, so I bought a round for the two cocktail waitresses, the DJ playing tapes from the sixties, two tourists from Omaha who had wandered in the wrong room, the wife, and myself. Got to show these Afftonians what the high life is like, I figured!
We spent the evening talking to people and saying nothing. Several times the wife turned to me and whispered, “I don’t know why we’re here!” The first two times she said that I replied, “I don’t either, this was your idea, remember?” Then she turned to me and said, “I don’t know why we’re here and I don’t know who these people are! Are you sure this is the right room?” Unfortunately, it was.
The crowd was pretty small, only 50 or 60 out of a class of nearly 300.
I figured that maybe the rest were at a Big Wheels truck race or home polishing the manicured grass in their yards.
The graduate who came the longest distance was from Atlanta, and I suspect he returned so that everyone would know that he was a doctor. At least he said that he was a doctor.
The wife didn’t know many people, and that was o.k. with her.
She was disappointed that her high school friends weren’t there, sure, but she was also relieved. Looking into mirrors is never easy.
We spent the most time talking to Jim. Ranked #1 in the class, he was and is a quiet fellow wearing Coke-bottle glasses who’s now a nuclear engineer at Mizzou. “He still looks the same,” the wife said, “I always knew he’d be a nuclear something or other.” The highlight of the evening was a dance contest. Only four or five people had the nerve to participate, and that was four or five too many from my perspective.
There were two guys in Full Chicagoswhite shoes, white pants, with white belts—who looked like they had been left on the airhoses too long; I kept waiting for one of their zippers or buttons to burst from exhaustion. Three girls entered and danced with one another.
Some things don’t change.
The winner of the dance contest was the motel’s DJ.
It wasn’t even close. Rule #3 was the best rule of all, and wasn’t surfaced until we started driving home. “Don’t write about this night in your In Your Ear column,” she said. “Sure, anything you say, dear,” I responded with a smile as I tapped my ring on the steering wheel.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, September 1991.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1991_09.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
