Cheers to the Class of '87

by Stephanie Black

My twenty-year high school reunion was wonderful. Absolutely wonderful, and not just because I won a gift certificate to Target in the raffle (woohoo!) Seeing old friends again, catching up on their lives—I was having so much fun chatting that the hotel staff finally had to flick the lights off and on to give us stragglers the hint that it was time to clear out. Friendship is truly one of the greatest gifts we have in this life, and renewing acquaintances with people with whom I shared those teen years was a great experience. And though we’ve added an extra twenty years onto our lives, we’re still ourselves. Paul is still funny. Darla is still bubbling with energy. Sherene is still a sweetheart. And I’m—heck, I haven’t the faintest idea what I am. Would you believe I was voted “Most Intelligent” in high school? That’s okay; no one else believes it either. They should have a contest like that now. I could get voted:

Most Likely to Forget an Orthodontist Appointment
Most Likely to Wear Blue Socks with Running Shoes
Most Likely to Get Food Stuck in Her Teeth
Most Likely to Lose Her Car in a Parking Lot.

Oh, the car thing reminds me—we have a new voice for our navigation system. It’s Mr. T. “Hey! Fool! In 400 yards, turn left.” “Don’t give me no jibber-jabber! Make a U-turn.” Our GPS map and the Utah streets didn’t seem to be a good match. Too many changes to the roads, and Mr. T kept wanting to send us very inconvenient ways. But when you defy his instructions too many times, he gets testy. After a while, he snapped at us, “Don’t disobey me! Don’t make me climb out of this machine, ‘cause I will.”

But setting aside the danger of getting our lights punched out by Mr. T, we had a great whirlwind visit to Utah. Between reunion events, we crammed in as much visiting as we could with other family and friends in the Salt Lake area. The kids did well at home, though my thirteen-year-old daughter informed me that the two boys spent the weekend like the cartoon fights where you see only a ball of dust with arms and legs sticking out of it. And the almost-three-year-old has entered the Tyrant Princess phase of her existence. (Incidentally, when I told her she could play while I worked on my blog, she remarked, “A blog is a kind of alligator.”)

Strange to think that I have two daughters (13 and 16) who are now in the stage of life I was in when I knew the people I met again at the reunion. Tonight is my kids' parent back-to-school night, where I’ll be running around the high school with my nose in a map, trying to find one daughter’s classes while my husband hunts for the other daughter’s classes. My high school in Utah was mainly just a big building; this California high school is more like a small college campus with multiple buildings scattered around. Maybe we ought to take Mr. T . . .