Dan takes in his 45th Reunion at Fair Lawn Senior High School (Part 3 of 3)

Weaving in and out of all the bodies of my classmates outside the large dinner and dance ballroom at the Marriott, I am given a bottle of a Chambourcin, a Pennsylvania Red Table Wine.  Don’t you love free stuff!   Our classmate Elaine, a vintner (Franklin Hill Vineyards), has provided bottles for every grad.   [I saved my bottle to share with the first class of ’66 classmate who comes to our place in Maine.  We’re just off the Maine Turnpike.]  We are each given a softcover book with all the names and addresses of the grads and a short bio for those who had submitted one.  It turns out I wrote the longest one.  Where does that kind of hubris come from?  I am not proud of that fact and for a guy who likes to blend in, I am a little embarrassed.  As usual, I hope nobody notices, at least tonight. 

Looking out for me, my classmates Doc and Shiffy include me at their table in a ballroom, which is filled with twenty such tables for 10-12 on either side of the dance floor.  Time just melts away as I turn to talk or have one classmate after another come up to me in an easy flow of conversation.  Tonight is like a prom without the pressure of impressing others or wondering if I will be exposed as one who can’t dance.  It is a coffee hour/pregame with few of the self-doubts of the teenage years.  Classmates are, it seems, comfortable with whom they are and are just chilling.  At least that’s what I see through my rose-colored glasses.

The Reunion Committee got it right by not scheduling any events during the evening.  A class picture is taken, but the night is just about reconnecting.  Different from my high school persona, I am not shy about approaching classmates.  My go-to question for getting conversations started is, Where do you call home now?   That leads to conversations about marital status (seems an equal number are divorced or have been married forever), kids (little bragging goes on, just the update), and career (seems we have a lot of lawyers, but they look trustworthy to me.)  Classmates just don’t seem full of themselves.  They are open, interested, and relaxed.  My key for successful conversations and relationships in general is finding people who are both interesting and interested.  I hit the jackpot tonight.

Paul and I talk.  Now living the good life in California, he played on the high school tennis team with me a million years ago.  At the time, I was so driven to be #1 to his #2.   Tonight I am glad to see how happy and happily married he is.  

Separately, I chat up with Wayne and Bob, who played in the band with me.  We all played clarinet and marched at the football games.  The band was a place where I belonged.  Bands are like cross country teams – they take everyone. 

Susan, the chair of the Reunion, is the ambassador for the night, checking with us all, graciously welcoming us to the Reunion.  I so get that tonight doesn’t happen unless she, Sue, Laraine, Anne, Roz, and Idy, the Reunion Committee, step up and make things happen.  Thank you ladies!  Gabe, Tim, and Lou, from Radburn days are here.  They go back even further to my grade school days. 

Fred is here, too.  A band guy as well.  My strong memory of him is his driving me home from a basketball game on a snowy night and purposefully braking and skidding on the snow up and down 20^th Street in Fair Lawn.  Linda proudly shows off her husband; I am taken by their mutual joy. 

I don’t have a drink.  I don’t dance (I know my limitations).  I just revel in seeing the old gang from high school.  I lose track of time.  Nine thirty comes and goes.  I am surprised during the evening the number of classmates who mention it must have been hard being the principal’s son.  I wanted to be known for who I was, not that my Dad was the high school principal.  Fact is, it couldn’t have been easy for my Dad either.    

And now I am on Facebook, checking in on the class of ’66.   Fred and I will meet in Jersey in the coming year.  Doc, Shiffy, and I regular email, especially focusing on Doc’s G Men, Shiffy’s Chargers, and my New England Patriots.  (Two out of three ain’t bad [Thank you Meatloaf!) are in this year’s Super Bowl.

Would I do it again for our 50th?  In a heartbeat.  This time I’d go to all the activities.  The trip back to the high school.  The Friday evening get-together.  Saturday and Sunday breakfasts with classmates.    

So why do people come to reunions in their 60s?  Some don't go to reunions because living once through the high school years is enough.  Others go because you really can go home again.  They are nostalgic about their little town and their growing up years.  It’s a skewed group of self-selected 63 year olds who are, I’m guessing, in a good place in their lives.  We did have a common set of events that shaped our thinking and our lives (e.g., Viet Nam War, Boom economy, 9/11).  It seems that anyone who comes to a reunion pretty much likes who they are and cares somewhat less what others think. 

Well, I made it to 1150P.  I didn’t turn into a pumpkin.   I couldn’t have had more fun.  And sign me up for 2016 for our 50^th Reunion.  It’s the best $95 I’ve spent in a long time.

Dan takes in his 45th Reunion at Fair Lawn Senior High School (Part 2 of 3)

It’s an early Saturday morning in Maine on this late October day of the Reunion.  Driving 300 miles to New Jersey, I realize my current anonymity as a member of the class of ’66 is much my own doing.  I made a life in Maine with Hannah; there have been few intersections with classmates with New Jersey roots.  Over the years I’d connect with Mitch, saw Doc from time to time, but pretty much led the family life in what seemed to be far off distant Maine.  Today I feel like the new kid coming to a new town.  Not quite, or not even close to Kevin Bacon in Footloose, but I do wonder how I’ll fit in.  For this 8P-12A Reunion, I can see myself leaving by 930P if nothing seems to be happening.  I’ll play my hand and see where the chips fall. 

For me, Fair Lawn in the 50s and 60s was a fairly typical Leave it to Beaver existence.  I walked through the park to Radburn School (K-6) each day and came home for lunch where my Mom made us sandwiches; I played baseball and tennis a stone’s throw from our house, swam at the park pool, played ping pong in our basement, and had plenty of neighborhood kids around so we could always field two full teams of whatever sport we were playing. 

For me, high school brought out my covert competitiveness, and not in a good way.  In retrospect, I realized I saw life as a zero sum game (if one wins, the other must lose).  I sadly jumped to the conclusion that I was my grades and my SAT scores.  They were fine but not amazing by any stretch.  I foolishly inferred that those who made the varsity teams or had higher grades, those who took the tough classes like Russian and Physics, were just beyond me.  I was always striving, whether it was to be #1 on the tennis team my senior year or to have a date for the senior prom.   I laid a heavy load of pressure on myself to succeed. It was not pretty.    

Spending the afternoon of the Reunion visiting my Radburn neighborhood of Fair Lawn, I hung out with my friend Penny, who was married to the aforementioned Mitch, my close childhood friend from way back.  I was in Mitch’s sphere and, only as I grew older, realized how fortunate I was to be so connected.  He had a way of traveling with many groups.  He was the common denominator for many of the people I knew in Fair Lawn.  Even today, as I think of who I might see at the Reunion tonight, most have a connection to Mitch.  Sadly, he died of leukemia in 2010.  Interestingly, Mitch swore he would never have come to a reunion, but he is with me tonight as I see our common friends.    

Fortunately, late in the afternoon, I follow-up on the invitation of two classmates, Doc and Shiffy, and hang out at Doc’s place, half watching the football game, the other half leafing through our FLHS yearbook as we relax in an old friend’s sort of way, catching up on the past four decades.  In 45 years, I was stunned how many people I had forgotten or couldn’t place at all as I looked at our yearbook.   If there was a quiz at the Reunion, I was going to flunk.  Always wanting not to be noticed for being different (old high school patterns are tough to extinguish), I opt for the dress-shirt-and-jacket-with-no-tie look, far cooler than I really am.  This casual cool belies my lack of casualness as I still wonder what the night will bring.  

Doc, Shiffy, and Me

Entering the Marriott in Saddle Brook, NJ, I am more relaxed than I thought I would be.  Immediately Zarrow recognizes me, welcomes me as an old friend, and instantly I am really glad to be here.  Zarrow was one of those core friends whom I hadn’t seen since high school.  It’s brief, but I have a harbor for the evening if need be.  He’s upbeat and immediately I hope we reconnect after this Reunion is over.  One for one!

The hallway outside of the reception room is crowded.  The Reunion committee is stationed at tables checking us in and handing us name tags, which are pictures of each of us copied from our high school year book.  Mine says “Moz.” [We’ll have to get together for me to take the time to explain its derivation.]  

As we check in, the upbeat women of the Reunion Committee are so pleased to see me, or so it seems to me.  Though we didn’t travel in the same circles (no part of our high school Venn Diagram intersected), I appreciate the welcome.  It seems the various orbits we were once in have now coincided.  We’re all 63, give or take, had highs and lows aplenty in the past 45 years, and are just looking to enjoy the evening and take the pulse of our classmates.  There is no hierarchy, no stars, no posturing, just people from an era just before all hell broke loose in the late Sixties looking to check in - not compare themselves to each other again.  And lo and behold, these sexagenarians don’t look old at all.  My classmates look good and healthy.  They could play 18 holes of golf or swim 20 lengths of the pool or carry on a lively two-way conversation. 

This had the potential to be a good, I mean a really good night.

Dan Takes in his 45th Reunion at Fair Lawn Senior High School (Part 1 of 3)

                                   

I never thought I’d go to my 45^th high school.  Not a chance in the world.  Let me give you a little background to better understand my decision.

  

I was a Rah-Rah wannabe at Fair Lawn High School in New Jersey in the Sixties.  Let me explain.  I was not in the In Crowd as a teenager.  At the time, I thought I just don’t have what it takes to be that cool.  I didn’t have the look, the confidence, the athletic prowess, and the whatever-something-they-had that I didn’t.  At FLHS, we had two main identifiable groups.  There were the Boppers – those who wore black leather jackets, smoked!, and challenged authority – and the Rah-Rahs – those who played sports or were cheerleaders, wore letter sweaters, were going to college, and dated all the good looking guys or gals.  There were other groups - the Band and Chorus kids.  The Drama kids.  The Artistes.  No doubt we had our share of Nerds.  And then there was the large group of us who just went through the school day not being noticed, kept our noses clean for the most part, and hardly caused a ripple during the school day.  A subset of that group was the Rah-Rah wannabes.  And ta-da. That would be me. 

To put the school life in some sort of context, Fair Lawn High School had 2000 students in three grades when I was a student from 1963 to 1966.  Our class was baptized as sophomores in high school by the death of John Kennedy just prior to Thanksgiving one early afternoon in November.   High school was fine, just not amazing.  Upon graduation, I couldn’t wait to leave New Jersey, which I did, first for Ohio, then Arizona, and later California.  I had a tight core group of friends who played sports on the side, hung out, walked a mile to school, and provided some much appreciated identity.  With them, I felt like I belonged.  Even today, I appreciate that I was part of that group.  To have some sort of distinction, we would do random things.  One was chanting “Let’s go Hedda” at basketball games when our friend Hedda wasn’t even on the team. 

Given that background and little connection with many in my high school class, I never thought I would go to a Reunion.  I feel I did a lot better after high school than during.  I’m guessing that many of my classmates felt that way.  I didn’t know it at the time, but not peaking in my teenage years was probably a good thing.  Still, I wouldn’t have minded a higher arc to my high school years.

Then my Dad died this past May at 94.   Dad was a beloved principal at Fair Lawn High School while I was a student there.  At the time of his death, classmates reached out to me and I was touched and surprised by their attention and compassion.  I mean I hadn’t seen many of my classmates in 45 years.  I was the principal’s son.  I was self-conscious about that but not in a debilitating way.  I just assumed I had my place and that was to keep quiet and be unobtrusive.

Hearing from classmates got me thinking about making connections at the Reunion with some of my classmates.  I had never made much of an effort to stay in touch.  I didn’t even consider going to the 25^th Reunion.  But now, as I was at the cusp of retirement, I thought I might make some connections and that would be a good thing for the retiring type.    

Understandably my wife Hannah was not up for the event.  I totally got that.   You might wonder about old flames showing up?  Please, I never had a high school girlfriend and was on the outer orbit (maybe Mars) in my high school’s solar system.  Fact is, I flatter myself thinking I was that close to the Sun.  I was meek and inoffensive, in part because that is my nature and in part because my father was principal. 

I was guessing that only the high school superstars or “successful” grads would come to a reunion.  Was I “successful” enough?  I thought I was in the ballpark.  Would those I knew in the band (I played the clarinet forgettably), the tennis team, or my classes be there?  I didn’t think any of the old gang would be there, but they might…

Shocking the odds makers, in May I decided to go for it.  I sent in the $45 deposit.  By August I hadn’t changed my mind so I paid the rest of the $90, made arrangements to stay at my Mom’s condo fifteen miles away, and was just going to muster the courage it took to go to my 45^th Reunion in October.