So there I was... remembering when with faces from Loogootee High School. A 20 year reunion. Ok..not MY class reunion, because I totally crashed my older sister's high school reunion (tacky? obnoxious? rude? maybe..but would you expect any less?). I find it funny that I was excited to see former team mates, friends and classmates but that there are a lot of folks that never go to theirs. Maybe it has something to do with me living away from the little town that we all took laps in. The back roads, now common daily driving, makes reunions feel unnecessary to those who's homes have remained in the same zip code as our Junior-Senior Proms and Graduations. There are handfuls of us who have left and returned, learning something out in the wild blue yonder--- home is where you make it yes, but making it near the memories of our youths is comforting, secure in ways that really don't make sense, and in the end, familiar territory when the rest of our lives start feeling foreign and unsatisfying.
Funny how memories are remembered differently by the people who experienced them. My sisters will often bring up a story from years gone by and I swear they must have been abducted by aliens or something because it doesn't even sound like something from my memory banks. Those stories are treasures because it's like seeing a snap shot of a forgotten past. My favorites will always be the great stories we all share and could never forget..smoking from the pack of cigarettes we stole from my parents (read=inhaling once and coughing up a lung for the next 30 minutes). Going "muddin" at Lyons farm on endless summer days. Laughing at how now I would have to go buy "cheap" shoes that I wouldn't mind getting ruined #tragedy. The pool parties. The bad hair. The bad clothing choices...I wasn't the only one with my name on the butt of my sweat pants, but I was the only one who walked around with "Broke" when my ass crack decided to munch on my shorts. Unfortunate as wedgies are...I wore those black sweat pants, turned cut off sweat shorts until the holes made them indecent in public. The same goes for my "Don't be a Dick" t-shirt. Wore that to basketball practice all the time hoping to send a subliminal message to Mr. Eyler so that maybe we wouldn't have to run lines at the end of practice.
People I hadn't seen in 20 years said I hadn't changed a bit. That's a compliment right? So many smiles in the crowd hadn't changed either. The tiny point guard and setter on our Volleyball team, Leslie, is exactly as I remember her. Always smiling and talking about The New Kids on the Block. Jami having the very same laugh that is contagious to everyone around. Brett, whose looks finally caught up with his height, was such a wonderful treat to walk down memory lane with. We're adults and it just seems so crazy to me sometimes. Shelley and Elise still crack me up with their senses of humor and I hope that their husbands and the boys they are raising realize just how awesome and laid back their wives/moms are. Wrinkles and gray hair be damned we are all the living testament of being raised in a small town. We might have just turned out ok :-) Some have lost parents already. But only two have been lost themselves. Those are the inevitable conversations that make reunions a bit hard to swallow. As years go by, those numbers will continue to climb and the never ending march of time will remind us to be thankful for the years behind us and hopeful for the years ahead.
Thank You, Class of 1993- for allowing me to share in your reunion. Everyone with the same beautiful face as the one in their senior picture. Beautiful to me, now more than ever, because it is in the undying spirit of our shared experience of high school that laid the foundation for everything that has since come from that far away time. No...I wouldn't go back. Not because any of you were awful, but because of the me that I was at that time has come so far. We all share the common bond of little Loogootee, Indiana. I wouldn't trade it for the world.
Memories are made of these-
Brooke-someone-should've-told-me-my-ass-was-Broke-Albertson
