The Way We Weren’t.

I don’t do high school reunions anymore.

A high-school reunion, for those of you who haven’t yet had the pleasure, is a malicious version of “This Is Your Life,” except that instead of a studio audience of admirers and friends, you are confronted by a provincial gaggle of hostile peers, waiting to judge you by ten-, twenty- or thirty-year-old expectations.

Unlike some of my classmates from my then blue-collar hometown, high school was not the high point of my life, so I guess my perceptions are a bit skewed. In fact, my memories of that time and crowd—those I haven’t successfully suppressed, that is—make the cast of “Survivor” look like a support group.

Like visits home to your parents, a reunion tends to transform you back into the insecure teenager you spent years trying to leave behind. The last Somerville High reunion I attended was my 15th, and unbelievably, the social dynamic was still the same. The Mean Girls from the old cheerleader/ majorette/pompon-girl clique still clustered at single table in the center of the hall, just like they did in the school cafeteria, and in snickering stage whispers exchanged observations about the former geeks and nerds like me who actually had the guts or the naivete to show up.

Meanwhile a few of the popular ex-jocks had too much to drink, and when not trying to paw their female classmates, recounted their sports triumphs ad nauseum, like an endlessly-looped Springsteen “Glory Days” music video.

But the capstone of the night was when an alleged “stand-up comedian” who happened to be a classmate did a profoundly unfunny set laced with some of the most offensively racist and sexist jokes I’ve heard outside of a redneck barbecue.

It was a memorable experience, but one I wasn’t eager to repeat. So it was with some cynicism that I opened the invitation to my 30th high school reunion. For $50 a person, I would get to eat rubber chicken or gristle-laden prime rib and get my ego ground to dust all over again for old times’sake. Such a deal!

If I could be sure that my friends–the drama and music geeks crowd I hung out with–were going to be there, I might have actually considered attending. But if I recall correctly, most of our merry band of iconoclasts and misfits didn’t show at the last reunion. These included the editor of the school paper (an MIT grad who would later become the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ first female Commissioner of Highways); the front man for the local rock band “Hobbit” (a published translator and former Assistant Dean at our own flagship State University); and a former fellow Girl Scout (a Fellow at the Thomas Watson Institute for International Relations at Brown University, where she rubs shoulders with the likes of Sergei Khruschev and Robert McNamara).

I wish they had attended–I would have had some great dinner conversation. Or perhaps not. At the last event, every time I managed to start a meaningful discussion with one of the three people I was genuinely glad to see, suddenly some old nemesis would corner me and bring up an instance of teenage humiliation, ending with “But that’s all in the past now, isn’t it? So nice to see you again.”

Navigating the conversational minefield at reunions is fun, yessirree. Chances for meanspiritedness abound. There’s the “How (Successful) Are You?” game, with a point system based on intrusive inquiries masquerading as friendly small talk:

“What are you doing these days?” (How much money do you make?)
“Are you married?” (If so, where is your spouse? If not, why? Are you gay or something?)
“Where do you live now?” (Still living with your parents?)
“How many kids do you have?” (Have you grown up yet?)
“What do you do for fun nowadays?” (This is a trick question. Points deducted for answering, “Collecting Thomas Kinkade figurines,” “Bingo Night at St. Clements,” or “Attempting to make bail.” Points added for “Golf,” “Lunching at the Club with the Junior League,” or “Competitive yacht racing.” Bonus points for “Decorating our second home in Monaco” or “I’m too busy meeting with my trust fund attorney to have fun.”)

The packet sent with the reunion invitation also included a survey for a ‘memory book.’ If I’d answered it, I doubt if my answers to the dumber questions would have been quite what the organizers had intended:

Which teacher are you still trying to forget?
Why ask me about someone I’m trying to forget? Isn’t that a tad counter-productive?

What was the high school memory you really don’t want your children to know about?
I don’t have kids, and if I did, do you seriously think I would commit that answer to print where they can find it?

Where was your favorite hideout to sneak a smoke? To drink?
Hey, Mr./Ms. Survey-Taker, this is Somerville. You forgot the ‘controlled substances’ part of the question.

Did you meet a spouse during high school?
Do you mean mine, or someone else’s?

What was your favorite “Tech Tourney” memory?
Gee, I wasn’t much for sports. For starters, this was pre-Title IX, so for women, ‘sports = cheerleading’, and we all know how well I fit in with that group. I did attend the annual pep rally, but not by choice. A handful of us lobbied unsuccessfully to be excused from what we saw as a pointless waste of time (a friend dubbed the event ‘Little Nuremberg’ and was just about threatened with suspension). So instead of dressing in the school’s red-and-blue, we sat in the balcony dressed in black, silently reading from copies of Orwell’s 1984 during the chanting and speeches as the teachers glared at us for our lack of “school spirit.”

Ah, those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end. Fortunately for me, they did.

Here are some questions I’d love to have asked some of my classmates:

To Sally, who in Junior High dubbed me “Bony Mahoney”, a name I only managed to shake by leaving town for good: When is the baby due? What? You’re not pregnant? Oops.

To Donna, who during a Civics Class discussion about civil rights, the Vietnam War, and the Women’s Movement once whined, “Why do we have to talk about such upsetting stuff? Why can’t we talk about nice things?”: Have you discovered the wonders of Prozac?

To Mike, the All-American straight arrow who reportedly avoided a runoff after a dead-heat finish for senior class president by telling his opponent, “You have to let me win—I’ve already put it on my resume for West Point”: So, did lying about your high-school record help jump-start your career?

To Claire, who defeated me for Senior Class Secretary on the basis of her membership in the ‘in’ crowd (which supposedly better qualified her to keep the class mailing list and organize the reunions): Hey, why aren’t you organizing this reunion?

Oh, well. I guess I’ll never find out if classmate Gary Winter (son of Howie) went into the family business with Whitey Bulger and the Winter Hill Gang. I’ll never get the chance to ask the privileged few who dismissed us as “hippies” how they feel about Somerville turning into a pricier, new-age version of Harvard Square. And I’ll not have the chance when confronted with innumerable photos of children and grandchildren to whip out pictures of my three cats and eight chickens.

But somehow, I’ll survive. Happy reminiscing, Somerville High Class of ‘71.

Coda: Apparently I’m not the only one on Teh Blogosphere who feels the way I do.