Greg Freeman: Reunion Showed My Wife How Much She's Been Missing. StL P-D 8/24/1999

Headline: REUNION SHOWED MY WIFE HOW MUCH SHE'S BEEN MISSING
Reporter: By Greg Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Tue., Aug. 24, 1999
Section: METRO, Page: B1, Edition: FIVE STAR LIFT

There probably are no two people more different than my wife and I when it comes to high school reunions.
Elizabeth has never attended one of her high school reunions. Clayton High School was never that enjoyable for her, and she's never desired to attend any of the reunions. She bumps into a few of her classmates every now and then, but she doesn't really keep up with many of them.
I, on the other hand, am the opposite. I was president of my senior class at Beaumont High School and have always felt a sense of school spirit. I've been involved in all of our high school reunions, not only attending them but planning them as well.

So when our class decided to celebrate its 25th reunion by taking a cruise to the Cayman Islands and Ocho Rios, Jamaica, I was all for it. Elizabeth wasn't so sure.
   "I'm not so sure I feel like going somewhere where people sit around all day trying to remember things from 25 years ago, " she said. "If I don't go to my own reunions, I don't know why I'd want to go to yours."
   "Come on, " I said to her. "It will be fun."
   Although initially reluctant, she agreed to go on the cruise. She was quick to add, though, that she wouldn't go to the dinner that would be held the night after the cruise. That was good enough for me.

So last week, we spent five days on a ship.
There was plenty to do for those who wanted to do it. Snorkeling and scuba diving in the Caymans. Climbing the rocks of the waterfalls in Ocho Rios.
We had none of that. Being the less adventurous type, we chose a glass-bottom boat tour in the Caymans, and decided to take in a show in Jamaica.

Elizabeth had feared that she'd be bored to tears as my former classmates and I talked endlessly about such things as how much we liked our counselor, Mrs. Boulding, or what things were like in Mrs. Bell's homeroom, or how we hated Mr. Davis' biology class. And while some of that came up -- it was like we were back in high school again when several former school cheerleaders did a cheer for all of us -- many of the discussions surrounded issues that people our age relate to, such as raising teen-agers.

By the time we returned from the cruise, Elizabeth was so much into the school spirit that she decided to attend the dinner after all.
   I was one of the speakers at the dinner. I read from our old high school newspaper, the Digest.
   Back in 1974, many of us had written what we expected to be doing 25 years later. As I read them, we all laughed, realizing that 17- and 18-year-olds often have no idea what they want to be. One classmate was a bit embarrassed when I read what he had written, that he would be driving a car with "a diamond in the back and a sunroof top, " and that he'd be "digging the scene with a gangster lean, " all words from a popular song of the day, for the uninitiated.
   "I don't know what I was thinking, " he said.
   Clearly, I didn't either, considering that I planned to be the first black president of the United States by now.

Elizabeth howled as we ran through the various predictions and realized how few of them had come true, and how ridiculous the teen-age ideas looked through fortysomething eyes.
Every so often, one of the predictions would hold a glimmer of truth, like the woman who said she would be head nurse at a Washington medical center (she became a head nurse, though not in Washington), or another woman who predicted she would become a doctor, marry and have children (she did all three).

Through it all -- as our former assistant principal Leonard Mershon spoke, as the band Velvet performed, as Baby O, our DJ, spun discs from the '70s -- Elizabeth smiled, clapped and thoroughly enjoyed herself.
I knew she had a good time when she asked me if the class was going to take another cruise to celebrate our 30th reunion.
I get the feeling she'll be going to reunions from here on in.

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

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