Oorgo

Reonion

Last Saturday I took the 1.5 hour trip out to my sisters to visit, with the family + the dog. She looked after the boys that night while we went to my 20 year high school reunion. As I was driving into town through the back roads (my sis lives on a farm) I thought to myself 'This road is very familiar... maybe I took it once or twice bypassing a check stop' .. yeah... I know .. horrible, despicable, heinous, but it was the 80's and we were young and logically stunted.

We got into town in about 15 minutes, and I realized my driving habits were still of the city. Some dude in a 3/4 ton truck pulled in front of me and crawled along at about 20 km/h, I swerved and went on my merry way at 10 km above the speed limit. Nothing much has changed, other than the really big bingo parlor outside of town, some shifting of businesses, some closures, a new flea market where the SAAN store used to be. We pulled into the parking lot of the hall and it was full of trucks, big-ass trucks and a couple of cars. Yep, this is Alberta alright, here I am driving my Honda Fit, and I park by some Dodge Ram 2500... dwarfing my poor little car.

Nerves jangling, I sign in, get my little name sticker, wave at someone I don't know who says 'Hi Dave', (of course we're late, everyone is already starting to eat and I have no clue where to sit). So we hover a bit, talk to some people that come up to us, walk over and make up a plate of food, then navigate until we find a friendly voice that says "Dave come sit here!". It was Jeanine, a girl I've known since jr. high, but I thought forgot me, that was pretty cool. Anyways we sit and start eating, I see others I know, others I know but really didn't talk to in HS, and some that I really can't name but their face is familiar.

So we're sitting eating, after saying hi to everyone and getting the ultra minimal update on "what are you doing these days". Somebody said at one point "What's new?" I just said "lots" .. I mean.. 20 years ... if nothing was new I would be in the ground from a bullet to my own head. It was a great meal though... very hometown: lots of meat, perogies, cabbage rolls, I love the Ukrainian food, even though I had a hard time eating it with my old friends trying to yack my ear off.

Strangest thing happened, somehow I was remembered and appreciated after all these years, I expected to go to this thing and disappear just like I did in high school. I expected the shallow people to still be shallow and the weird stigma to still be on my head. Perhaps because I lead a bit of a different life than most of them I stood out now? I don't farm, I'm not in real estate or pharmacy or construction or... etc. I'm in IT and a musician on the side, it just amazed people that I'm still playing trumpet.

We started the night out like old times, sitting with the semi-nerd portion of the crowd, laughing at the stupid things we did, what was different though, was when we were about to leave. We walked over to another table with a bunch of guys I new way back from elementary school, although I didn't really talk to them anymore. I was greeted with a hug from one of them and they were sincerely happy to see me, it was surprising and refreshing. I guess people do mature after 20 years.

What was really interesting is there were people that still live there but didn't actually come to the reunion. I guess if I still lived in my hometown I probably would not have gone to my reunion either. All the grudges and problems and stupid things that happened in HS would still be fairly fresh because you still saw those people around town. Small towns are funny that way, you can't get away from the people you don't like or the people who don't like you. You either become a hermit or face up to the problem, neither being a 100% solution. The real solution from what I have seen is to move away and don't come back for 20 years.

Posted by Oorgo at July 26, 2007 02:05 PM Permalink - Category: Things | TrackBack