The Fifty-Seventh Happiest Place On Earth (Approximately)

Last weekend, my Groom excitedly escorted me to his thirty year high school reunion. Here is where I pause, so as to recover from the multiple mind-blowing facts packed into that declarative sentence.

Anyway, we don't get out much these days. So preparing for this momentous evening entailed many wardrobe changes, hair adjustments, makeup applications, and checking of the profile in the mirror accompanied by the traditional sucking-in-of-the-stomach. Me, I just threw on some jeans and hung out on Facebook until he was ready. I kid!

(This is pretty dicey territory, you know. My Groom is generally not too thrilled about blogness featuring, well, him. But in fairness, he pretty much knew five minutes into the reunion that he would wind up here.)

We both cleaned up pretty thoroughly and put on something nice and drove for what felt like three and a half days to meet up with all of his old football buddies. I am not at all kidding when I tell you that my Groom was giddy with anticipation.

The reunion was held in the dingy back room of a dingy restaurant which probably should have given up about a decade ago, judging by the decor. Apparently, this is where all of the reunions have been held. The deterioration was painfully obvious even to those of us who had never been there before. And I haven't even gotten to the attendees yet. We were greeted in the dark parking lot by a woman and her husband out grabbing a last minute smoke before heading in to "face the music" as she put it. She immediately recognized my Groom. Sadly, he did not recognize her. Inside the lobby/pizza buffet area, we collected our name tags and a stapled alumni directory. On the directory cover we were pronounced "Blue and White Sponsors" of the reunion. My Groom confessed that he had "added a little extra" to the ticket charge to help with the exorbitant cost of putting on the event. My Groom is especially fond of attracting appreciation in an understated manner. I love this about him, partly because it often lends itself to comic moments of revealed naivety about what other people value. Like high school reunions, for instance.

Out of a graduating class of about three hundred, twenty-four made an appearance. I would say the overriding theme of the night for most of those present was Closure. Football buddies? Not so much. Mostly people to whom football players did not give the time of day. Just about everyone remembered my Groom. My Groom, however, recalled about five of them. Heads of hair? Also not so much. Plenty of big, round bellies, though. And lots and lots of Old. Old as far as the eye could see, which wasn't all that far since everyone kept reaching for their reading glasses and grumbling about the name tag font being too small.

Thankfully, one and all remembered my Groom as being a kind person. This helped when it came time to find a place to sit for dinner. We selected a table full of strangers (they were all tables full of strangers) and passed an enjoyable hour or so sharing a dinner of lukewarm Italian food and stories of Where We Are Now with three lovely couples whose names I never caught. My Groom's Blue and White Sponsor money helped provide all present with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for dessert.

After dinner, someone produced a camera and corralled the twenty-three strangers plus my Groom to pose for a group picture. It didn't look right at all. It looked like my tall, full head of hair Groom standing in a crowd of amiable senior citizens. That was about all the reuniting he could take at that point, so we hugged a few strangers and left.

It's been an interesting few days watching my Groom absorb the lessons of this night. Lessons like not everyone found high school to be a glorious experience. And even if it was a glorious experience, people may not show up because life has not continued to be quite so glorious for them. And twenty-five dollars doesn't buy what it used to, such as chocolate sauce for the ice cream.

Anyway, it was a lovely evening and a nice way to wrap up a week away at Disney World with the Tornadoes. There is really nothing to say about our trip to Disney World. It went exactly the way such a trip is manufactured to go, and now we own headbands with mouse ears on them. And now, we are on to Christmas.