by Jack Mageean

Created on: December 04, 2009

(Old)

A Gathering of ^Crows

Everyone is the hero of their own story. I guess that explains why so many people remember high school as a great time. A trouble free time when they were oh, so cool. Memory being selective, I'm sure they believe it to be true. Of course, I know better.

It was with this point of view that I paused just inside the entrance of the lobby bar at the Holiday Inn. It was crowded with laughter and jostling. The thought that went through my head was, I'm sure, the same as every other person entering that room: I could not have gone to school with all these old people.

This was my fortieth high school reunion yeah, forty. Do the math and you'll realize this was a room filled with people pushing sixty. Not a pretty sight. I had been to all the previous reunions. The tenth was as if we were back in high school. Everybody quickly hooking up with old friends, laughing and carrying on like nothing had changed. And the girls really looked hot. At the twentieth, everybody was enormously successful, if they were to be believed. Every guy was a wheel, a Captain of Industry, etc. The girls all had the most beautiful children, a fantastic home and their own successful careers. The point they were all trying to get across was: My life is better than yours. The women looked hot. At the thirtieth, things had changed. Most conversations centered around how glad they'd be when the kids got out of the house and they could quit the miserable jobs they went to each day. Gravity had taken its toll and age was starting to show. But many of the women still looked hot. So what did the fortieth have in store?

Unlike previous reunions this one was not run by classmates but by a company called Reunions Unlimited. So, this was a reunion in a box. A cookie cutter of every other reunion they run. The biggest disappointment was that the name tags awaiting us at the reception table did not have our yearbook picture on it as they did at every other reunion. What the tags did have was the company name:

Reunions Unlimited, INC.

and the graduate's name: Jack Mageean. As I said before, we're all pushing sixty. There's no one in the room that can read the name on the tag from three feet away with or without their glasses. As a result, the first thing everyone had to do when meeting someone was to bend at the waist and push their head into the other person's breast. We all looked like we belonged to some cult and this was the secret handshake. Not to mention some of the reactions

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