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Noel Buffington (Buffington)
My first thought about the 50th high school reunion was: Oh Lord! I’ve never been around so many old people in my whole life!
But seriously, it fulfilled many of my expectations. There was no pressure, no hormones raging, so it was easy to talk with everyone, even those women who as girls I lusted over mightily. (Don’t you wish you knew to whom I refer?)The big downer was something that occurred before the reunion. Thinking about the no-pressure thing I resolved to talk with the girls I dated way back when I was an out-of-control adolescent suffering from a serious case of arrested personality development. When I went to the reunion website to check them out, to make sure that they were coming, the first one I checked on was no longer with us, the same with the second, the third, the fourth... at which time I stopped my searching. Once more I felt that death stalked my life, which exposes me for the narcissist that I still am - they are the ones who died, yet I can comprehend their loss only in terms of how they affected me.
On the lighter side I spent the weekend doing something that would have drawn considerable ire, maybe even corporal punishment, from most of the women I know now or knew in Atlanta. That terrible thing I did was stare at women’s chests. The only glasses I could find when I was leaving to go catch my plane was a pair with darkly-shaded lenses and an old prescription, so it became for me one of those damned-if-you do, damned-if-you-don’t situations. Glasses on, glasses off, I had a terrible time reading those stick-on name tags so I could know to whom I was speaking. I wish those women had slapped their name tags on their foreheads to make it easy for me, but I guess that was a little too much to hope for... you think?
Still and all, I had great fun, and it was great seeing and speaking with all those folks after all these years. Thanks to everyone who helped put it all together, especially Ouida and Joe Todd.
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