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FROM ONE DEFINING MOMENT TO ANOTHER
I turned around and there was Donna Kennedy, smiling, as perky and pretty as I remember on a long ago day in November. It was our sophomore year, during Mr. Partlow’s World History class. Now, here we were at the Glencliff High School class of 66 40th reunion. I reminded her we were in that World History class together. She reminded me (though like most of our generation I did not need the reminding) of where I was on that day, when we got the terrible news from Dallas. Looking back now it seems so surreal. Though I would not have been able to describe it that way then, it was a defining moment of our youth, an idyllic youth that would be put to rest a few years later by the war in Viet Nam.
My name is Mac McDonald and has been for quite some time, and though Billy had become Bill, and Donnie had become Don, and Larry had become Laura, I immediately became Marvin again with my former classmates. I was under the gun with an approaching deadline for an article I was to write for The Middle Tennessee Writing Project. So I decided to write about my high school reunion over Labor Day weekend, and the changes time had tolled on us all. Hell, why not? Though the finished product turned out a bit different from the original premise, here goes.
I had arrived on Friday afternoon and checked in for a genteel evening of reacquaintance at the hospitality suite before golf and the formal dinner on Saturday. I wasn’t able to connect with the bunch going out for dinner on Friday, as I was too busy smuggling in some sorely needed provisions unavailable at our very nice but dry inn. I tried to sneak my booty, partially in my boots, into the hospitality suite but found the door locked and barred. The wild bunch hadn’t even left me a note. I went back to the desk after belaying my booty back into my room to check for messages. There were none.
What to do? I noticed down the hallway from the front desk a Watson family reunion. I stuck my head in just to see if it was that Watson family with that Watson girl, you know the one with the nice hot tubs, but I didn’t see her (or maybe she saw me first). I decided to return to my room and watch some TV, my usual Friday night agenda when I wasn’t working gate duty at the high school football games where I was now teaching.
Returning to floor number three, which was strange enough since the front desk was on floor number four, I luckily found Jimmy Cockerham camped out by the elevator sitting on a stand up ashtray. We always were an adaptable bunch. He was able to lead me to the Promised Land on the fifth floor. The Promised Land involved finding Ronnie Mansfield and some other iced down provisions of the smuggled in variety. Ronnie didn’t look like he’d gained a pound, but Jimmy and I had done our duty and made up for his fasting. I went back to my room and rebooted my booty and returned to enjoy a leisurely libation as we pondered and predicted who we may and may not see that evening or the following day.
When the dinner folks returned from catching all the catfish they could eat, we all gathered in the hospitality suite, finally. I had to give Linda Hart a new check since the post office lost my first one even though Bobby Frazier assured me the next afternoon that never happens. Of course I had no reason to doubt Bobby; he had also managed to pick two evenly matched golf teams. Somehow his team of Sandy Strohl, Bailey Gipson, Grady Elam, and him managed to drub Cockerham, an alumni-in-law (Charon Bagley’s hubby), Danny Martin, and me. Drubbed is not a word I use lightly. (By the way isn’t it time Danny drops that story about not graduating with us because he was living in Japan and Hawaii and admits to the GED he got from the Jordonia Detention Center?)
But I digress. You never saw such a tired shut down Friday night in the hospitality suite when someone mentioned it was eleven o’clock. We were primed and ready for the festivities on Saturday, but we needed rest. In fact I should have slept through breakfast instead of connecting with Richard Hillenbrand and buying four blue GHS ball caps for my golf team. We looked good. We were the Colts the mighty mighty Colts… We loved those hats… for about six holes.
During the late morning and early afternoon while Bobby Frazier was making eagle from 160yds out, and Sandy was leading the rout carrying their team to victory, Pat Dodd was leading some others on a nature hike through the woods. I’m not sure how enjoyable that was or how entertaining it was, though I’m sure the lovely Ms. Dodd was as captivating as ever, but I’m quite sure while deep in the woods the nature hikers encountered some of Danny Martin’s wayward drives.
The back nine chatter on the golf course led to the realization some of us might need a nap prior to the late night gala. But, once back at the inn, we decided checking in with those in the hospitality suite might be a better idea and of course, the polite thing to do. There, I reconnected with Ronnie Mansfield who had gone fishing while I was pretending to golf. His luck was no better than mine. I asked who was about, and he asked me why we were looking so tired and worn while those Wilson girls (Donna & Dianne) were just as cute as ever. I agreed with his assessment concerning the Wilson’s but had no reliable answer to his inquiry.
Besides the Wilson girls, all the other gals there seemed to have fared a bit better than we men who seemed to be content with balancing out what we‘ve lost on top with what we’ve gained in girth. The hair growth or lack thereof, brought up talk of the reverse in school as we embraced the Beatles and the rest of the British invasion. This led to the assertion that our music is still the best, as Mike Poston will attest. No I didn’t say postman, Bobby Frazier. I know you didn’t lose my check on purpose. You probably have underlings to do that sort of thing for you.
Ah, how the hospitality flowed, and many other things as well. As we sipped cocktails and swapped memories, and telephone numbers, I admitted to someone I was maybe the last person without a cell phone and didn’t feel like I needed one. But when we ran out of Irish whiskey and began to moan, G. G. Mullins stepped out on the balcony and called David Knight who was enroute, and within minutes I had a bottle of twelve year old scotch in my hand, and I was thinking how great modern technology was indeed. I know the Scotch and the Irish don’t always get along, but we did the best we could to blend the cultures.
As time grew nigh to go down for dinner, I ran back to the third floor for a shower. By the time I got down to the banquet room, the hospitality was flowing once again along with the laughter and the smiles. The truth was also flowing that day. I got to tell Donnie Rust how much his friendship had meant to me. Then turned around and embarrassed him by telling his lovely wife stories she begged to hear about him. I got to hug my old friend and rival Mike Hunter as we talked of endless ballgames in his back yard with all the neighborhood kids and our dads. Truly those were glory days. I almost forgave him for hitting me with that hockey stick. Maybe next time.
Yes there was truth, but there were also lies. The biggest ones went something like this, “Why you haven’t changed a bit,” and, “I’d recognize you anywhere, Danny Elmore.” Of course everyone had changed since we went out to change the world, some more than others, except perhaps Jerry Adams, our heart and glue, and those cute Wilson girls. (With the latter that’s a good thing, with the former maybe not.)
There were other admissions I overheard that night. As I talked and toasted as many old classmates as possible, everyone agreed how grand an event it turned out to be. The reunion committee had done a wonderful job, and everyone there was having a grand time. Oh there were the usual shortcomings. I won a flashlight as a door prize and still can’t figure out how to load the batteries. The chicken was dry and the roast beef was shoe leather. I should have had the catfish. However, as I mentioned to Mansfield about twenty times that I remember. I don’t think anyone there could name anywhere they would rather have been that night, even though Janis Young arranged to have a birthday like we needed reminding we are getting older and older. We admitted missing those who’ve passed, and those who were unable to attend for various reasons. Janet Blanke was especially missed, and we all sent our thoughts her way. My two favorite admissions were the following; Tommy Baucom, three-year strongman starter for the UT Vols, admitted wholeheartedly that Wylene Pafford still haunts his algebraic dreams, and he wakes up in a cold sweat unable to find the value of x. I promised not to tell.
Now, as my thoughts go back to Donna Kennedy and that November day when we heard of the fate of a President named Kennedy, and how now we all remember where we were and what we were doing that day, I think of my high school students, and how I’ll ask them on September 11, 2006 to write what they remember about where they were, and what they were doing on that horrific date five years ago. Both are dates that define our times and who we are. But I think now that perhaps the defining moments themselves may not be as important as the wonderful folks with whom we shared those difficult defining moments. Those people helped make us who we are. So I raise my glass, one more time, to you, GHS class of 66.
Oh, my second favorite admission? Mansfield and I made plans to volunteer for a reunion committee so we can hang out with those Wilson girls. Did I mention how cute they are?
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