The Numbers Game
The Source
I’m not good with numbers. In fact, I’d rather ignore them altogether. Give me a number and I’ll forget it, transpose it, somehow get it wrong. But a few weeks ago I was assaulted by a number as I drove to Jacksonville for a reunion of my IC class. It was my first college reunion. I think it was. Did I mention I’m not good with numbers? I’d always listed class reunions right up there with other joys like root canals and dance recitals, but as I drove across the leaf-strewn Mauvaisterre bottomland I tried to do some figuring. Let’s see…I escaped Illinois College in 1971. That’s 81, 91, 2001, 2011. Forty years? Forty years! No way. I refigured. I used my fingers to count. It came out the same. I was about to go to a cocktail party with people who were forty years past college and here was I, still a kid. I wondered if there’d be anyone there I could play with. Pulling to the curb on the street where my old friend Greg was hosting the shindig, I sat in the car a few minutes to watch the groups enter his house. No walkers. No canes. None of my old classmates were exactly running across the lawn doing cartwheels, but they managed to be carrying themselves to the gathering with a reasonable amount of ease. Either I had the wrong house or someone was selling steroids down the street. Let me stop a minute to explain why I don’t like class reunions. I don’t know. In fact, I enjoyed this class reunion, so maybe it’s the idea of class gatherings that turn me off. I had envisioned a tedious evening of nametags and wine coolers around people whom I either didn’t know or couldn’t remember. We did have nametags and exotic little cocktail crackers, but our beer-drinking bravado of 1971 had mellowed into wine-sipping gentility in 2011. In fact, the iced tea carafe was the first to be emptied. And I was in the last group to leave. How did that happen? Okay, since most of the class no longer reside in Jacksonville and have little access to The Source newspaper, let me make a few poorly trained observations: ---The jocks age the best. …at least those who are still living. It seemed from looking around the room that those who took good care of their bodies forty years ago have kept up the practice and the rest of us have kept on our happy road to decay and ruin. ---The “party hounds” have no company any more. I spied a few old rebels who used to cause a great deal of havoc on the IC campus in the civil unrest days of the 1970’s, but they seemed a bit lonely in this crowd. The protests had been turned over to a younger generation, and flowers look really silly in your hair when you no longer have hair. ---We hug more than we did in ’71. In fact, I can’t remember any of us hugging each other 40 years ago, aside from the occasional degenerate whom we’d find hugging a fire hydrant after a late night on Lake Jacksonville. On this night hugs were easy…welcome. ---The class of ’71 seemed genuinely interested in the lives of others. This was perhaps the most blessed revelation of the entire evening. When we were 21 our main concern seemed to be our own selves and how we appeared to others was paramount. The group munching catered cheese bits at Greg and Nona’s house were intensely interested in how each other’s life had fared. This made me happy. ---Aging makes you look older. Okay, this is not terribly profound, but I mean it in a good way. We looked respectable…mature…wise! It was both a shock and pleasure to see “kids” who once spent their lives in sweat pants and running shorts now resembling very young U.S. Senators…and perhaps a Supreme Court Justice or two. When we’d smile at each other that night and said, “You look great!” there were many times when we really meant it. ---We go to bed earlier. If there’s one thing I remember about the class of ’71 it was their habit of staying up all night and missing 8 a.m. classes. At our 40th reunion we began yawning around 9 p.m. and by 10 we were thinking of bed. ---After 40 years, nametags are crucial. I’d originally told the college I wouldn’t be attending then I received the sweetest, most pointed email from a friend who kindly reminded me that we’d have alumni flying in from both coasts and it would behoove the locals to attend. She was right. I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I look forward to the 50th.