Reunion Crasher

Brian's 25th High School reunion was this past weekend, and along with seeing my old friends at Jeremy's in Bellingham, and giving Nora a little face time with her grandparents, our last reason for going was to stop in on the casual Saturday night drop-in at the local bar owned by Lance, also in the Class of '83.

Brian didn't really care if we went, but then found his friend Alan D. from his class on Facebook who also lives in Seattle, so once they both said they'd be there, there was an actual reason to go.

When Alan D. arrived with his wife, I grabbed her while our husbands talked and said "Let's go sit down, since I barely know anyone here either!" and we had fun talking and getting to know each other. Ah, perfect stranger, a drink, and just knowing she was married to Alan made her cool.

As many of us probably feel, there really isn't a reason to go to a reunion, unless you already live in town and have nothing to do but to go hang out in a bar and have flashbacks of what it felt like to be in high school all over again.

If you were a jock or a cheerleader or something else that made you popular, and you don't weigh 450 lbs., then a reunion is probably fun for you.

If you were a band geek like I was, the only real fun is going and realizing that I probably don't have as much gray hair as most people in the room, although there was an AWFUL lot of frosted heads in there, so who knows.
No, the best part for me was seeing Michelle W., who went to our church and was in my sister's class, and who I always thought was a great gal. Good to see her happily married to a nice guy from their class, and see a few pictures.

The other part was watching people like Marilee L. and Randi S. staring at me from across the room as they tried to figure out if I was Jill, or her little sister.

I remembered Randi and since she has a sister in my class, I immediately walked up to her and said "Hey, you're from the S. family, huh?" (I'm a brilliant conversationalist, what can I say?)
Oh but wait. There was an even better part. The other night I had gone through our yearbook from 1983 (I was a sophomore that year) and saw a picture of Pat, the girl who briefly dated my husband Brian WAY back then, and discovered that there was a good chance she'd be at the reunion since she posted on the class's website that she owned a business in town. (She's in the black & white outfit, seated on the right).

I asked Brian about if he remembered "that drill team chick who he dated while I was crushing on him so hard," and he had the perfect answer. "Who?" he asked. "Oh, Flag Girl?"

Yeah. Flag Girl.

So later after he explained that she was quite nice and was fun to hang out with (WHATEVER!) I said I hoped to meet her at the reunion, which I did.

And it turns out, she was still quite nice and fun to hang out with. She at least talked to me for a few minutes and didn't get all clique-y like high school kids do.
And near the end, I got to talk with Glen E. who knew my sister by being the boy and girl "student of the month" with her (my sister was the over-achiever in the family/one of them anyway). And talked a few minutes with Scott L., who was always a cutie in high school, and still seems as nice as ever.

And when Jodi D. (pictured here on the right) found out Scott was married to a former ballerina, she laughed and said "That sounds so CIVILIZED, compared to my cage fighting career!!!"

Yup.

Nice to see you Class of '83. You've made me decide I'm crashing the Class of '84 next year. I wouldn't miss it for the world!