Class Reunion Quotes

At the time we’re stuck in it, like hostages locked in a Turkish bath, high school seems the most serious business in the world to just about all of us. It’s not until the second or third class reunion that we start realizing how absurd the whole thing was.

It was also, however, a favorite place for novices to stand and wait for innocent students to slip up by talking too loudly between classes. No novice has ever been created that could keep Gina quiet, however.

You will never regret the things you fail, only the things you fail to try.

It was bad, but what in high school is not? At the time we're stuck in it, like hostages locked in a Turkish bath, high school seems like the most serious business in the world to just about all of us. It's not until the second or third class reunion that we start realizing how absurd the whole thing was.

Although champagne was served, the mood was curiously subdued. After this reunion, they would probably never meet together as a class again—at least not in such numbers. They would spend the next decades reading obituaries of the men who had started out in 1954 as rivals and today were leaving Harvard as brothers. This was the beginning of the end. They had met once more and just had time enough to learn that they liked one another. And to say goodbye.

Look what the cat dragged in," Ms. Skoglund said. "Were you waylaid by all your female admirers?" "It's nothing like that," the boy said. "Besides, you know I only have eyes for you." "Sure you do," Ms. Skoglund said. "I mean, why bother with one of those skinny little things your age when you can go for someone who's trying to lose another thirty pounds before her twenty-year class reunion next summer? That makes sense.

The wind taught me never to forget old friends, by blowing them back to me.

This Mrs. Emory remembers she phoned the Horton house to talk to her friend about a class reunion.

Reunions are the first day of school all over again. Time casts away familiarity and replaces it with warm confusion. Seeing how the years have frayed the friends of our youth reminds us that we too have irrevocably changed and can never return to a state of innocence again.

At the time we’re stuck in it, like hostages locked in a Turkish bath, high school seems the most serious business in the world to just about all of us. It’s not until the second or third class reunion that we start realizing how absurd the whole thing was. A

Being a failed teenager is not a crime, but a predicament and a secret crucible. It is a fun-house mirror where distortion and mystification led to the bitter reflection that sometimes ripens into self knowledge. Time is the only ally of the humiliated teenager, who eventually discovers the golden boy of the senior class is a bloated, bald drunk at the twentieth reunion, and that the homecoming queen married a wife-beater and philanderer and died in a drug rehabilitation center before she was thirty. The prince of acne rallied in college and is now head of neurology, and the homeliest girl blossoms in her twenties, marries the chief financial officer of a national bank, and attends her reunion as president of the Junior League. But since a teenager is denied a crystal ball that will predict the future, there is a forced march quality to this unspeakable rite of passage. It is an unforgivable crime for teenagers not to be able to absolve themselves for being ridiculous creatures at the most hazardous time of their lives.

The class reunion is next year, and I’m going to tell everyone what you really like to do when your nose isn’t buried in a book.

There are two basic coping mechanisms. One consists of dreading the chaos, fighting it and abusing oneself after losing, building a structured life of work/marriage/gym/reunions/children/depression/affair/divorce/alcoholism/recovery/heart attack, in which every decision is a reaction against the fear of the worst (make children to avoid being forgotten, fuck someone at the reunion in case the opportunity never comes again, and the Holy Grail of paradoxes: marry to combat loneliness, then plunge into that constant marital desire to be alone). This is the life that cannot be won, but it does offer the comforts of battle—the human heart is content when distracted by war. “The second mechanism is an across-the-board acceptance of the absurd all around us. Everything that exists, from consciousness to the digestive workings of the human body to sound waves and bladeless fans, is magnificently unlikely. It seems so much likelier that things would not exist at all and yet the world shows up to class every morning as the cosmos takes attendance. Why combat the unlikeliness? This is the way to survive in this world, to wake up in the morning and receive a cancer diagnosis, discover that a man has murdered forty children, discover that the milk has gone sour, and exclaim, 'How unlikely! Yet here we are,' and have a laugh, and swim in the chaos, swim without fear, swim without expectation but always with an appreciation of every whim, the beauty of screwball twists and jerks that pump blood through our emaciated veins.

As we’ve gone along, I’ve pointed out that a warm childhood relationship with his mother—not maternal education—was significantly related to a man’s verbal test scores, to high salary, to class rank at Harvard, and to military rank at the end of World War II. At the men’s twenty-fifth reunion, it looked, to my surprise, as though the quality of a man’s relationship with his mother had little effect on overall midlife adjustment. However, forty-five years later, to my surprise again, the data suggested that there was a significant positive correlation between the quality of one’s maternal relationship and the absence of cognitive decline. At age ninety, 33 percent of the men with poor maternal relationships, and only 13 percent of men with warm relationships, suffered from dementia.

The doorbell rang, so I grabbed my checkbook prepared to pay the landscapers—but it was Rosalind Carson, Everyone’s Favorite Social Worker and Darth Vader’s mentor.

In the end, Miss Margitan settled for a formal apology and two weeks of detention for the bad boy who had dared call her Maggot in print. It was bad, but what in high school is not? At the time we’re stuck in it, like hostages locked in a Turkish bath, high school seems the most serious business in the world to just about all of us. It’s not until the second or third class reunion that we start realizing how absurd the whole thing was.

At my ten-year high school reunion, I was voted best looking. Of course, there were two people in my high school, and while I wasn’t the best looking, my brother was two years younger and therefore not in my graduating class.

Until his arrival I had been without a friend. There wasn't one boy in my class who I believed could live up to my romantic ideal of friendship, not one whom I really admired, for whom I would have been willing to die and who could have understood my demand for complete trust, loyalty and self-sacrifice.

I am sitting alone in my old English classroom at my old desk, reading from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The only sounds in the room are the ticking of the clock and the occasional rustling of the pages of the book. Then, Martina Reynaud, the most beautiful girl in the Class of ’83, walks in. She’s tall, graceful, and absolutely breathtaking. She’s wearing a black dress, one that shows off her long dancer’s legs. Her peaches-and-cream complexion is flawless; there is no sign of a pimple anywhere. Her long chestnut hair cascades down over her shoulders. In short, she is the personification of feminine elegance from the top of her head to her high-heeled shoes. I try to get back to my reading assignment, but the scent of her perfume, a mixture of jasmine and orange blossoms, is beguiling. I look to my right; she is sitting at the desk right next to mine. She gives me a smile. My heart skips a beat. I know guys who would kill for one of Marty’s smiles. She has that effect on most men. Her smile is full of genuine warmth and affection; I can tell by the look in her hazel eyes. “Hi, Jimmy,” she says. Her voice is soft and melodious; she speaks with a lilting British accent. From what I’ve heard, her family is from England. London, actually. “Hi,” I reply, feeling about as articulate as your average mango. Then, mustering my last reserves of willpower, I focus my attention on Shakespeare’s play.

The good news is that we can sometimes control the “circles” around us, moving toward smaller circles that boost our relative happiness. If we are at our class reunion, and there's a “big circle” in the middle of the room with a drink in his hand, boasting of his big salary, we can consciously take several steps away and talk with someone else. If we are thinking of buying a new house, we can be selective about the open houses we go to, skipping the houses that are above our means. If we are thinking about buying a new car, we can focus on the models that we can afford, and so on. We

Dad had gone ballistic when Ruby got suspended from school for smoking, but not Nora. Her mother had picked Ruby up from the principal’s office and driven her to the state park at the tip of the island. She’d dragged Ruby down to the secluded patch of beach that overlooked Haro Strait and the distant glitter of downtown Victoria. It had been exactly three in the afternoon, and the gray whales had been migrating past them in a spouting, splashing row. Nora had been wearing her good dress, the one she saved for parent–teacher conferences, but she had plopped down cross-legged on the sand. Ruby had stood there, waiting to be bawled out, her chin stuck out, her arms crossed. Instead, Nora had reached into her pocket and pulled out the joint that had been found in Ruby’s locker. Amazingly, she had put it in her mouth and lit up, taking a deep toke, then she had held it out to Ruby. Stunned, Ruby had sat down by her mother and taken the joint. They’d smoked the whole damn thing together, and all the while, neither of them had spoken. Gradually, night had fallen; across the water, the sparkling white city lights had come on. Her mother had chosen that minute to say what she’d come to say. “Do you notice anything different about Victoria?” Ruby had found it difficult to focus. “It looks farther away,” she had said, giggling. “It is farther away. That’s the thing about drugs. When you use them, everything you want in life is farther away.” Nora had turned to her. “How cool is it to do something that anyone with a match can do? Cool is becoming an astronaut…or a comedian…or a scientist who cures cancer. Lopez Island is exactly what you think it is—a tiny blip on a map. But the world is out there, Ruby, even if you haven’t seen it. Don’t throw your chances away. We don’t get as many of them as we need. Right now you can go anywhere, be anyone, do anything. You can become so damned famous that they’ll have a parade for you when you come home for your high-school reunion…or you can keep screwing up and failing your classes and you can snip away the ends of your choices until finally you end up with that crowd who hangs out at Zeke’s Diner, smoking cigarettes and talking about high-school football games that ended twenty years ago.” She had stood up and brushed off her dress, then looked down at Ruby. “It’s your choice. Your life. I’m your mother, not your warden.” Ruby remembered that she’d been shaking as she’d stood up. That’s how deeply her mother’s words had reached. Very softly, she’d said, “I love you, Mom.

It is farther away. That’s the thing about drugs. When you use them, everything you want in life is farther away.” Nora had turned to her. “How cool is it to do something that anyone with a match can do? Cool is becoming an astronaut…or a comedian…or a scientist who cures cancer. Lopez Island is exactly what you think it is—a tiny blip on a map. But the world is out there, Ruby, even if you haven’t seen it. Don’t throw your chances away. We don’t get as many of them as we need. Right now you can go anywhere, be anyone, do anything. You can become so damned famous that they’ll have a parade for you when you come home for your high-school reunion…or you can keep screwing up and failing your classes and you can snip away the ends of your choices until finally you end up with that crowd who hangs out at

The pair glanced up in unison to see a group of veteran agents standing a bit apart from the rest. The ones with too much pride to grab and shout like the others. The ones who’d been around long enough to have fought at the sugar factory, who’d graduated in the same class. It’s a little Guilder reunion. There was Maria and Alicia, standing together with matching cups of coffee. The telepath usually shied away from field work, and the doctor kept to the hospital, but they’d received an official summons just like everyone else. Riley, an over-energized cheetah, was standing just a few steps behind—folding his arms deliberately over his broad chest to show off his latest tattoo. There was a space behind them. A space where Rob and Andy would have usually stood. The eagle had been sent a message like everyone else, but had failed to arrive. But perhaps the biggest surprise was the man who’d called out to them. Nicholas MacGyver was standing in the center of the group—looking strangely out of place, beyond the comfort of his lab—but even more fiercely determined.

Why Is a Path Important? We all know people who make a lot of money, but hate their work. We also know people who do not make a lot of money and hate their work. And we all know people who just work for money. A classmate of mine from the Merchant Marine Academy also realized he did not want to spend his life at sea. Rather than sail for the rest of his life, he went to law school after graduation, spending three more years becoming a lawyer and entering private practice in the S quadrant. He died in his early fifties. He had become a very successful, unhappy lawyer. Like me, he had two professions by the time he was 26. Although he hated being a lawyer, he continued being a lawyer because he had a family, kids, a mortgage, and bills to pay. A year before he died, I met him at a class reunion in New York. He was a bitter man. “All I do is sweep up behind rich guys like you. They pay me nothing. I hate what I do and who I work for.” “Why don’t you do something else?” I asked. “I can’t afford to stop working. My first child is entering college.” He died of a heart attack before she graduated. He made a lot of money via his professional training, but he was emotionally angry, spiritually dead, and soon his body followed. I realize this is an extreme example. Most people do not hate what they do as much as my friend did. Yet it illustrates the problem when a person is trapped in a profession and unable to find their path.

chubby weird girl is still hiding in there somewhere, and until you make peace with her, you’re never going to be able to let go and move on.

Class reunions were about curiosity; about satisfaction at the avoidance of the mistakes of one’s contemporaries, now revealed in their emerging life histories; about reflecting on the ravages—and injustices—of time; and of realizing, perhaps, how strange and random are the twists and turns of fate.

The reunion, she decided, was an unnecessary and stressful complication to life. We did not need to reheat cold dishes from the past.

…reunions, she felt, were not much more than a scratching at the vague itch of memory. And like scratching, they rarely helped—indeed, scratching often made matters worse, as any dermatologist would tell you.

Brushing a strand of honey-golden hair from her face, he returned the smile . . . but felt it fade almost immediately when he got a closer look at her cheek. “Is that a handprint on your face?” Lucetta waved it off. “It’s nothing. He leaned closer. “Did Silas hit you?” “It was more of a slap, but considering I was expecting far worse, well . . .” Bram’s hand clenched into a fist. “He touched you?” “Well, yes, slapping a person does entail touching, but again, it could have been much worse.” “Excuse me.” Stepping around her, he nodded to Mr. Skukman, who was sitting on Silas’s back, arms folded across his chest as if it were an everyday occurrence to lounge around on the back of a man he undoubtedly wanted to strangle. Bram couldn’t help but admire Mr. Skukman’s restraint even though Bram had no intention of following in the man’s footsteps. “Would you be so kind as to stand with Lucetta for a moment?” he asked Mr. Skukman. “Of course.” After making certain Stanley and Ernie still had Silas firmly under control, Mr. Skukman stood, walked around Bram, and then, to Bram’s surprise, pulled Lucetta into an enthusiastic hug, so enthusiastic that Lucetta’s feet left the ground even as she laughed. Realizing that the poor man had obviously been just as distraught as Bram had been over Lucetta’s abduction, Bram couldn’t help but smile at their reunion. His smile faded almost immediately, though, when Silas began trying to squirm his way free. “I demand you release me at once. I’m Silas Ruff, an influential man about the country. Believe me when I tell you I’ll use that influence to see each and every one of you pay for your interference and careless disregard for my person.” Bram walked closer to him and looked down. “I’m afraid your influential days are numbered, Silas. You see, kidnapping is a serious offense, which is why you’ll be spending quite a few years in jail.” Silas had the nerve to smile. “I didn’t kidnap anyone.” “No, you paid a Mr. Cabot to organize and implement the abduction. And before that you paid him to track down Lucetta’s family, which allowed you to learn her stepfather is a notorious gambler with a bit of a drinking problem.” The smile slid off of Silas’s face. “How do you know that?” “Mr. Cabot told me, of course.” “How

If everyone who was strong stood up for those who were weak, then those who were weak might also become strong.

Mom showed me a section. It was a passage about a fifty-fifth high school reunion. It began: The list of our deceased classmates on the back of the program grows longer; the class beauties have gone to fat or bony-cronehood; the sports stars and non-athletes alike move about with the aid of pacemakers and plastic knees, retired and taking up space at an age when most of our fathers were considerately dead. It continued: But we don’t see ourselves that way, as lame and old. We see kindergarten children—the same round fresh faces, the same cup ears and long-lashed eyes. We hear the gleeful shrieking during elementary-school recess and the seductive saxophones and muted trumpets of the locally bred swing bands that serenaded the blue-lit gymnasium during high-school dances.

So I went through the whole list except the names beginning with H, and when I had finished I found that twenty-six boys out of the forty-six in my class had died for das 1000-jährige Reich.

The ten-year reunion had been an odd experience. I’d gone mostly out of curiosity, but had found the evening awkward and anticlimactic. Most people had turned out to be exactly who I’d expected them to be. Our class had produced no celebrities or mega successes. Everyone had extremely mundane and commonplace jobs, except for Donal Larkin’s twin sister Shannon, who’d joined the State Department. There had been a lot of strained small talk with people who didn’t remember me, as well as a few uncomfortable conversations with people I’d forgotten who remembered me well. One woman whose name and face rang no bell whatsoever had proudly produced her yearbook to show off the heartfelt note I’d written to her. There on the page, in my own handwriting, was a lengthy message I had no memory of writing, extolling our meaningful and abiding friendship. The whole experience had been unsettling. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to repeating it, but I supposed since I was on the reunion committee now I had no choice but to attend the thirty-year.

It was a passage about a fifty-fifth high school reunion. It began: The list of our deceased classmates on the back of the program grows longer; the class beauties have gone to fat or bony-cronehood; the sports stars and non-athletes alike move about with the aid of pacemakers and plastic knees, retired and taking up space at an age when most of our fathers were considerately dead. It continued: But we don’t see ourselves that way, as lame and old. We see kindergarten children—the same round fresh faces, the same cup ears and long-lashed eyes. We hear the gleeful shrieking during elementary-school recess and the seductive saxophones and muted trumpets of the locally bred swing bands that serenaded the blue-lit gymnasium during high-school dances.

My phone dings. Probably my mother, who has mom-radar and always knows when I’m up to no good. Undoubtedly asking how many Hail Marys she needs to say for me today. I grab my phone just to make sure it’s not a somebody died text, and almost fall off my stool. Tarzan here. Looking for Ms. P. This her? I close my eyes, blow out a slow breath. One, if he’s texting me, his date with Lila Valentine probably didn’t produce a second, which makes me happier than I have any right to be. Two, I’m not asking the guy to marry me. I’m asking him to be a hot piece of ass to make me look good. And three, I’m suddenly worried that my bad taste in men is making an unfortunate appearance again. What man in his right mind would text back a woman who made that proposition last weekend? Am I wrong about his date with the auction winner? Did I leave something behind at the hotel, and he’s just returning it? Or does he actually have some secret fetish that’ll play out wrong in the middle of my class reunion? "Who’s that?" Sia demands. "Tele-texter," I lie. I ignore the glares from my friends and type a quick reply. Yes, this is Parker. Except my phone hates me, and it autocorrects to Trying. This is Parking. Thanks, phone. Y E S, I type. Damn autocorrect. I hit send, and "Ohmygod." "What? What?" My friends all peer around me, and I jump off my stool to keep them from seeing my screen. Autocorrect just autocorrected to autocunnilingus. I just told Tarzan I’m eating myself. What have I done? Does that count as sexting? I don’t know. This is why I can’t have nice things.

It was over 50 years ago that I had the privilege of being the Class Advisor to the class of 1969 at what was then called Henry Abbott Regional Vocational Technical School. It was another era and a time when we as a nation stood tall. It was the year when Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins lifted off from Cape Kennedy, for the first manned landing on the Moon. “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” It was a time when we felt proud to be Americans! Fifty years ago the 4 Beatles got together in a recording studio for the last time, where they cut “Abbey Road.” In 1969 alone they published 13 songs including “Yellow Submarine.” John Lennon claimed that the best song he ever did was “Come Together” and that was in 1969. Although it wasn’t possible for me to attend the class reunion I did however connect with them by telephone and a speaker system. I had the opportunity to wish them well and share some thoughts with my former students who are now looking forward to their senior years that I always thought of as “The Youth of Old Age.” Having just celebrated my 85th birthday, 69 years old does seem quite youthful in comparison. Earlier in the week Dave Coelho, the class Vice President read to me the list of graduates that are no longer with us. I was stunned by the number, but at the time the United States was at war, regardless of what it was called. In 1968, the year before the class graduated, our country had a peak of 549,000 of our young people serving in Viet Nam. During the year of the Tet Offensive alone, 543 were killed and 2547 were wounded, and that is what the class of 1969 faced upon their graduation! It was a war in which 57,939 of our young people were killed or went missing! It was nice to talk to the class president LaBarbera and I enjoyed the feeling of guilt when one former student told me that he still has a problem with addition. To this I gladly accepted the blame but reminded him that this would not be of much help, if he had to face the IRS when his taxes didn’t compute. Look for part 2, the conclusion

On the working-class, multiethnic Upper West Side alone, Moses bulldozed two stable communities of color. One, along West 98th and 99th Streets, he destroyed as a gift to the builders of a market-rate development called Manhattantown (now Park West Village). At a reunion in 2011, a former resident told the Times, “It was a great neighborhood to live in. I remember playing jacks, eating Icees, playing stickball and dodge ball, jumping double Dutch and when it got really hot out they would open up the fire hydrants.” Said another, “It wasn’t a slum; why tear it down?” The other neighborhood was San Juan Hill, destroyed to make way for Lincoln Center. An African-American and Latino working-class community, San Juan Hill was full of theaters, dance halls, and jazz clubs. In the early 1900s, it was the center of black cultural life in Manhattan, where James P. Johnson wrote the song “The Charleston,” inspired by southern black dockworkers on the Hudson River. Still, it was branded as “blight.” While they fought the city in court, 7,000 families and 800 small businesses were removed and scattered.

At the street level, Sugar Fair welcomed customers into a bright, child-like fantasy. The architecturally designed enchanted forest was awash in jewel tones, and gorgeous smells, and the waterfall of free-flowing chocolate. But it was the Dark Forest downstairs that had proved an unexpected money-spinner, an income stream that had helped keep them afloat through the precarious first year. Four nights a week, through a haze of purple smoke and bubbling cauldrons, Sylvie taught pre-booked groups how to make concoctions that would tease the senses, delight the mind... and knock people flat on their arse if they weren't careful. High percentage of alcohol. It was a mixology class with a lot of tricks and pyrotechnics. It had been Jay's idea to get a liquor license. "Pleasures of the mouth," he'd said at the time. "The holy trinity--- chocolate, coffee, and booze." With even her weekends completely blocked out, Sylvie had almost made a crack about forfeiting certain other pleasures of the mouth, but Jay had inherited a puritanical streak from his mother. Both their mouths looked like dried cranberries if someone made a sex joke. The sensuous, moody haven in the basement was a counterbalance to the carefully manufactured atmosphere upstairs. There were, after all, reasons to shy away from relentless cheer. Perhaps someone had just been through a breakup, or a family reunion. A really distressing haircut. Maybe they'd logged on to Twitter and realized half the population were a bunch of pricks. Or maybe the'd picked up the Metropolitan News and found Dominic De Vere indirectly thrashing their entire business aesthetic in a major London daily. Whatever the reason--- feeling a little stressed? A bit peeved? Annoyed as fuck? Welcome to the Dark Forest. Through the bakery, turn left, down the stairs.

Vero Beach,” she said. “That’s where Ruth’s class reunion is taking place.

Ruby had found it difficult to focus. It looks farther away, she said, giggling. It is farther away. That's the thing about drugs. When you use them, everything you want in life is farther away. How cool is it to do something that anyone with a match can do? Cool is becoming an astronaut, or a comedian, or a scientist who cures cancer. Lopez Island is exactly what you think it is - a tiny blip on a map. But the world is out there, Ruby, even if you haven't seen it. Don't throw your chances away. We don't get as many as we need. Right now you can go anywhere, be anyone, do anything. You can become so damned famous that they'll have a parade for you when you come home for your high school reunion, or you can keep screwing up and failing your classes and you can snip away the ends of your choices until finally you end up with a crowd who hangs out at Zeke's diner, smoking cigarettes and talking about high school football games that ended twenty years ago. She had stood up and brushed off her dress, then looked down at Ruby. It's your choice. Your life. I'm your mother, not your warden.

She had barely talked to Jamie about his school days, and she wondered whether this was another area of experience that was for some reason out of bounds. Had he been happy? Who had his school friends been? She had no idea. There must be a reason why he had decided not to attend his ten-year class reunion; normally Jamie’s instincts were social. If invited to a party, he went, and usually enjoyed himself; perhaps this did not apply to reunions.