Old Friends: Bar Nunn

A 50-year high school reunion is a meeting of survivors, a time to compare notes and see how well you’ve handled life. I went to it with some reluctance mixed with an excited interest. Up to the minute I got in the registration line at the hotel, I was saying to myself “I need to lose 10 pounds before the reunion.” 

I only expected to see a small group of friends, a lot of acquaintances, and a lot of old people. I wasn’t disappointed. Lydia is my rock in such situations. I don’t mix well with others easily, while she is unafraid to walk up and start conversations. Really, it was with her encouragement that I had come at all. For me the visit to my home town was a chance to share my upbringing with my children. One has these feelings I suppose as age and health issues encroach on life activities.

At any rate, we only stayed a couple of hours. I’d made contact with the small number of old friends who had attended, some of whom would not be attending the dinner the next night. With Lydia’s support I decided to not attend either. An evening of making small talk with folks I’ve not seen in donkey years is outside of my comfort zone. I would rather have had the chance to sit and have long one-on-one conversations with each one. That was not the plan. So, it was enough to see the transformation in faces that fifty years had made. My curiosity was satisfied. I wasn’t the only person who’d grown old.

The event was draining and we were worn by our journey, so this morning we slept late, drove around town to refresh my memory and share childhood events with Lyd, stories I’m sure I was repeating. We grabbed a burger then and hunkered down in the bus with our books while the temperature rose above 100 degrees.

I had leafed through an old annual at Lydia’s suggestion before the reunion. There were many faces that I had forgotten, people who at one time had been part of my life, if only tangentially. They had been part of the fabric of my existence. To see their faces last night was a validation of that time and it gave me a sense of reassurance and quiet joy. Even if I didn’t talk to them, we were once again together in that amorphous collection of people that fate and city boundaries had decreed was the class of 1968. I hope that they know that, even if we didn’t talk (and I’m sorry it wasn’t in me), they were the best…Bar Nunn.

The Road