Reunion snapshots

— Shelly coming over to our table and saying, “I am sorry, but all the girls in our class look SO HOT.”

— Our terrorizing vice principal was there, slugging back drinks at the bar. He was such a bad-ass. He kept us all in line. We all reminisced about the small detention room he kept off to the side of his office called “the Tank”.

— Mere and I took off our shoes to dance. No way can I get through Rock Lobster in heels.

— Laughing SO HARD with Ram and Erin about the incident in Chicago – which someday I MUST write about. Erin came running over to me: “You are my witness! You are my witness!” Wow. Major nuttiness. The last time I saw Erin and Ram was during “the incident” … which was YEARS ago. So we all just had to roar with laughter about it.

— The names … the faces … waves of memory. John L., Mark W., Cris D., Donna O., Peter C., and on and on and on … Chris W!! Telling us stories about taking his mother to the movies. Very amusing. But the faces … seeing all the faces …

— Laughing with Cindy C. about how she was ALWAYS GROUNDED in junior high. ALWAYS. We used to sit in the back of the school bus. “Wanna go to a movie this weekend?” “Can’t, I’m grounded.” “Want to go roller skating on Friday?” “Can’t. I’m grounded.”

— Saw pictures of people’s kids. Which was so cool.

— Leo looked and smelled like a million bucks. He wore a suit. He brought his yearbook over to Beth’s house beforehand, and we all sat in the kitchen, rain POURING down outside, flipping through the photos of our class. Leo pretty much knew what was going on with every single person.

— Keith M. Couldn’t get over it when I first saw his face. Could. Not. Get. Over. It. We talked off and on the whole night, and by the end I was still getting used to his grown-up adult face. Beautiful.

— Talking with my old South Road school classmates about the sad event of the closing of our old school. Beth has up-to-the-minute updates in this regard, so we talked a lot about the fate of our school. Keith and I laughed about me kissing him behind the fort (the fort no longer exists – BUMMER), and I got a chance to apologize for chasing him down like a wild-haired maenad (thanks for the word, Anne). We also ROARED about this enormous DOME which used to be on the playground. It was like a jungle gym, only in a dome shape … that thing was huge, so dangerous!! Kids would hang from the top like little chimps, with no supervision. I did it myself. hahahaha You say to any kid who went to South Road School in the 70s: “How ’bout the Dome??” and you’ll get a big response.

— During dinner, many conversations about camp. We all went to the same camp – another experience that deserves a couple separate posts. Beth and Michelle’s kids were, that very week, up at the SAME CAMP we had all gone to as kids. And our dear friend Betsy couldn’t be with us at the reunion because she runs that week of camp … It was sad to not have her there – but also strangely perfect that she would be THERE on that night. A place we all have such fond memories of.

— I said something to Beth during dinner that made her do a spit-take.

— So good to see my old friend Kate. She seems like she’s doing really well … and I had a really great time talking with her, catching up.

— Oh yes, and the wasted woman showing up … who … we had no idea who she was … and she acted very familiarly toward us … she had no name tag. She was WASTED.

— Friends: please add more in the comments.