Hmm. I knew calling it a “reunion” was a bit cynical. This was a regional gathering of any alumni of my high school in the greater New York City area. I went to one of these about 8 years ago. At the time I was still with Donna, and for some reason we thought it was a great idea for her to come with me. It was not a great idea. I felt bad for her enduring what had to be the most boring 2 hours of her life, but I also respected her for even doing something like that. Donna loved me. She really, truly did.
Calling it a “reunion” is cynical because this gathering is really a fund raiser. Someone who donated a million dollars to the school was singled out for honor, and admissions to Harvard and the University of Chicago among the most recent graduating classes were highlighted.
I crossed paths with one person from my class (1986) and we made the best of our conversation. I told him, truthfully, that for as long as I’ve been in New York I did not think anyone from our class had made it here and stayed. One dude I met at the 5-year reunion had lived right across the street from me on York Avenue, but he moved back to Tampa. Other than that I knew of no one from the exact class of 1986 who was here. Others from our era have been said to inhabit the region, including one dude I slept in the same bed with on an overnight field trip my senior year. The trip was booked by school administrators and they had 4 dudes sharing 2 beds just to save some money. Girls share beds, but guys? Not so much. But we survived. I was somewhat uncomfortable but the guy with whom I shared the bed seemed extremely nervous. It was only years later that I learned he was gay. High school did not come out as gay in those days, not without fear.
People were from all over the place, generationally. I talked to some of the younger kids, who looked like they were 15 years old in $3000 Brooks Brothers suits. I’ve have lost connection with that part of New York, or of reality: being well-dressed. Appearances like that have never seemed important to me compared to the content of one’s character or the substance of their intellect. But the suits were downright oppressive, down to the badly-knotted ties and luxuriously baggy pants. It’s like I was wandering around a wax museum where the wax sculptors injected obvious and gawky flaws into their statues.
I told a couple of dudes how, as editor of the school paper, I wrote a poem for the final edition that read, if you read vertically the first letters of some of the lines: “FUCK YOU ALL TO HELL”. I was mad for not being voted “Most Talented”. To this day I think I deserves keys to the city not so much for doing that but for getting away with it.
Alright, I gotta eat and then sleep. It’s been a long, mostly useless day here. But the “reunion” was interesting.
Cornell Club
