When I was in high school, I thought I was a grown up, or at least a big girl. This summer, I had a chance to get together with a bunch of my classmates for a reunion. Looking back to my senior year, I realize now that I was still just a little girl. Perhaps a bit of a misfit, perhaps a little girl who spoke out when she should have kept quiet, and perhaps someone who liked a whole lot of people, ‘cuz, hey why not?

This is the way my high school looked like, only with more circles:

I always did like Math, even though my first high school teacher, who got awards for being a good teacher, looked me straight in the eye and said in front of the whole class, “Some of you don’t belong here.” Right then and there, I was out to prove him wrong. Cary was in my math class.

A circle for my band geek friends, a circle for my cool friends, a circle for my egg-head friends. In the middle, d-x, was me and my boyfriend. We had a secret, we were in love, and mostly everything faded out of view except that. Only it really didn’t, cuz, you know, those other circles were still there.

Cary was in my egg-head friends circles. He was quiet and studious and super-duper nice. Of course none of those things are particularly cool. Just ordinary. Cary was in the science club, on the prom committee, in National Honor Society, and the manager of the basketball team. I was a cheerleader for the basketball team, on the banquet committee, in National Honor Society, and Band. Cary and I were in a lot of classes together: Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Math. Mathematically speaking, we were x in the intersection diagram. If I was a smart as I thought I was, I’d have realized that x was quite a bit bigger than d-x.

I loved those classes. So did Cary.

I had Boyfriend, so I didn’t know Cary all that well. Boyfriend was not studious. He was an athlete, football player, a track star, a baseball player, a basketball play, and even a wrestler. He was Coo-ool. He had a picture in the year book from shop class with the caption, “A dirty old rag, for a dirty old man.” That was Hilarious. Only a cool kid could pull that one off. Boyfriend didn’t talk to eggheads like Cary and me. Boyfriend loved me, he didn’t actually talk to me. But you know, big hairy deal, not everyone needs to talk.

Well to be honest, I didn’t even like Boyfriend that much at first, but he picked me and everybody thought he was coo-ool and I’d be a fool not to like him back. I told him if he grew his crewcut out and got on the honor roll, I’d consider him. He tried really hard, but only succeeded in getting longer hair.

Then the first dance came, and Boyfriend cut-in on someone I had more in common and liked quite a bit. Someone who could play “Yellow Bird” on the piano. That’s when I fell in love. Maybe it was Boyfriend’s English Leather, maybe it was because Boyfriend’s mother made him take dance lessons at Arthur Murray School of Dance. From then on, it didn’t matter that we had next to nothing in common, we had a secret, we were in love.

Boyfriend wasn’t at the reunion. No one even asked me about him.

Cary was the star of the reunion

Everyone remembered and knew Cary. We had such a good time catching up on what we were like in high school and what we’d done since. Cary was so delighted that people remembered him. Of course we remembered him. Cary was smart and kind. Those are things that last way longer than cool.

Here’s a photo of Cary now.

Loved-One loved Cary, too. The two of them had quite a discussion about the world, the country, and the state of the environment. I stayed for part of that, and then flitted off to get my Year Book signed. Something I didn’t do when I was busy being such a grown up little girl back when I was in high school.

Here’s the bunch of us at the reunion. To tell the truth, I can’t tell who is cool and who is a band geek and who is an egghead. But I can tell you this, I wish I had more time to catch up with everyone. I love these people.