Reunion

I got up early last Thursday and drove four hours to attend my Reagan High School class 65th reunion. No surprise! We met in a Bar B.Q restaurant in north Houston.  Some things never change. Speaking of change, some of my friends had changed so much, they didn’t recognize me. Actually,  when I walked into the room, I thought I had mistakenly found the tour group for Branson. Man! Some of these folks looked old. Resembled the stock market, with grains and losses – gained weight and lost hair.  Questions flooded my mind.  Was he really on the same baseball team as me?  What about basketball?  Did I actually date her?  It was difficult to date anyone back then.  My extremely conservative Southern Baptist parents forbid me from dating anyone but Baptist girls.  It was hard to get a date when my first pick-up line was, “Excuse me, but are you Baptist?” A few of my favorite reunion lines (not necessarily from last Thursday’s reunion):

• Did you ever get a real job?
• Is this your daughter?
• So which weight loss program are you on?
• I thought you were dead.
• What happened to you?

I left early, while the reunion was still going on.  Long drive back home.  Besides, you can’t soar with the eagles, if you insist on hooting with the owls.  I did find a biblical basis for such activities.  The Apostle Paul had been away from his friends in Philippi for several years when he wrote to them, “I long for you” (Philippines 1:8).  I really did want to see my old friends, enough to get up early and drive the distance.  I’m glad I attended the reunion.  It was good to re-new friendships.  Fun to be in a group where so many sentences began with, “Do you remember . . .”  I’m sad for those who are no longer with us.  There were about 30 of us last Thursday out of a class of 714.  Looking forward to the next reunion, although there will likely be even fewer of us.  I guess we can find a smaller, more intimate Bar B.Q. place where we could meet.