Gregory Freeman: 20 Years Later; A Little Bigger, Grayer, Wiser. P-D 8/5/1994

Headline: 20 YEARS LATER; A LITTLE BIGGER, GRAYER, WISER
Reporter: By Gregory Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Fri., Aug. 5, 1994
Section: WAR PAGE, Page: 7C, Edition: FIVE STAR

MY 20-YEAR high school class reunion begins today.
   It's too late for me to lose weight; even starvation won't help me hide my non-beer belly now.
   There's nothing I can do about my much-too-rapidly graying hair. Oh, I've got it. It's hard to see the gray in the drawing of me that runs with this column. That's one of the joys of black-and-white.
   But, unfortunately, I'll be in living color at my reunion. And too many people know that I have salt-and-pepper hair for Grecian Formula to be anything but obvious.
   Today we'll tour our alma mater, Beaumont High School, and then tonight we'll attend a reception where my classmates will learn that I'm double the man I was in high school - at least weight-wise. More activities will follow this weekend.

I was idealistic in high school. I was in student government, and I guess that's what led me to write in the school paper 20 years ago that I expected to become the first black president of the United States.
I think it's pretty safe for me to tell my wife she won't have to worry about picking out that White House china at any time soon.
Likewise, I didn't become the lawyer that I was so sure that I'd be by now.

I'll have to avoid the Keeping-Up-With-The-Joneses Syndrome as I go to this reunion. That will be hard.
   Some classmates have done really well, with huge, modern homes in suburbia, complete with picket fence and every modern convenience that's ever appeared on the shelves of Builder's Square.
   I, on the other hand, have a house in the city, built in 1917, that is in desperate need of a new coat of paint. I was thrilled when we installed a garbage disposal.
   The guest speaker at our dinner Saturday is a classmate who's risen to senior vice president and chief executive officer of a major corporation here. I, on the other hand, am a mere scribe who puts words together on a regular basis.

My wife has refused - rightly, I guess - to come with me to this reunion. She didn't go to the same high school as I. As my former classmates and I sat around talking about how Mr. Miller used to clear the hallways and how members of the senior council spent weeks making flowers for a car in the homecoming parade, my wife's eyes surely would take on a thick glaze as her mind wandered to more interesting things, like polishing the furniture.

I have no idea who will show up at this reunion. A 20-year reunion is a milestone of sorts that's worth celebrating, I suppose.
Of course, it's also life's way of officially notifying you that you can no longer consider yourself young. Major advertisers start deserting you. Instead, they're all rushing to embrace Generation X.

Despite that, I'm looking forward to the reunion. There were a couple of girls I went to school with whom I had crushes on back in high school. But I was pretty shy when it came to girls 20 years ago, so I never told them I liked them. If they show up, I might tell them. Then again, I may still be too shy to say anything at all.

I know our principal had planned to attend. I visited his office just once when I was at Beaumont.
   I was president of the class when we held a well-attended fund-raiser. It went so well that we asked a school administrator to request the event for our class again. Instead, he requested the event for the school's athletic association, which he chaired.
   The class vice president and I - angry about what happened - put posters up all over the school condemning what had happened. And while we were in class one day, the principal summoned us to his office.
   When we got there, he made it clear that while freedom of speech may apply in the real world, it didn't in high school.
   He told us to take every single poster down from the walls immediately, adding that he didn't want to hear another word about the fund-raiser. If we failed to comply, he said, we would not graduate with the rest of our class.
   That was the closest we came to having the fear of God put into us. I remember imagining how I could possibly tell my mother that I would not graduate because I had put posters up on the walls.
   Sheila Sawyer - the vice president - and I hurriedly removed every poster and every piece of tape used to put them up.
   And, somehow, life went on.

I'll be thinking about that and other high school memories when the Beaumont class of 1974 - a little fatter, a little grayer - gets together. And maybe a good sports coat will hide my non-beer belly.

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

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