41st Reunion

The UK pinged me the other day about a write-up of the high school reunion we attended a couple weeks ago.  I think TK may have been waiting for me to chime in as well.

It all happened on September 11 and 12.  I was the sole coordinator of the event and the entire class was keyed up to see me.

The three of us, along with 4M, flew back on the 10^th.  TK and 4M had a connecting flight through Chicago, which was canceled.  This made them about 2 ½ hours late at EWR.  The UK tried to bust chops when they arrived, by texting that we were already upstate.  They didn’t buy it.  We headed north, hopping on old 17 at one point, past the defunct Red Apple Rest and stately Tuxedo High, where TK and I played some hoops.  Or TK played and I cheered from the bench.

We dropped TK off at Hafe’s place.  Hafe is the owner of our Saturday night venue and looks about 45.  Then we were off to the Middletown Courtyard, where Jim U. picked up 4M.  I had seen Jim several years back and met his wife at a dinner at 4M’s house.  So he was not as excited to see me.

The UK and I walked over to one of the finest establishments in the area, TGI Fridays, around 1am.  We couldn’t get a pop at EWR waiting for the tardy contingent, since we were on the wrong side of security.  The UK tucked me in around 2.

Why the hell we had to pay $200 a night to stay at the Courtyard was not clear, but they did have Starbucks in the lobby.  The decent java got us off to a good start.  The two of us took a tour of Middletown on Friday, past my old house, my grade school and a few other sites before we headed downtown.  The downtown of my boyhood is long gone.  There’s an occupant for maybe every third storefront.  The store names remain, e.g. Tompkins and Ruthberg’s, but they’ve been shuttered for 40 years.  Our high school bar – that does not sound good – The Shack was now Diana’s Treasures, or at least was before Diana split.  I’m not sure how we packed so many people in that place.  I guess it was the Tuesday night 15 cent beers.  The UK snapped a few pics and then we trekked back to The Courtyard to gussy up for the main event.

The first night was at Delancey’s in Goshen.  Stop in the next time you are in town. 4M had made badges with our high school picture on them.  These came in very handy as I had not seen the majority of these folks in 40 years.  There was a whole lot of hugging going on.  It was really great to see the whole crew again.  I know a lot of folks that would like to forget high school, but I’m certainly not one of them.  Our school had excellent academics and extracurricular activities.  You didn’t have to worry about going into the bathrooms, unless you were bothered by tobacco smoke.

Two of my freshman year teachers showed up.  Mrs. G, our social studies teacher, took us camping with her husband and some other teachers our sophomore year.  My good bud DH made that trip, but could not return for the reunion.  We caught up by phone the next week.  Mrs. G. is now involved with the Nora Cronin Academy, named after yet another of our teachers.  I’ve made some donations to this very worthy cause over the years and so should you.

http://www.noracroninpresentationacademy.org/

The UK and I split up Saturday. He headed down to the convent where our chemistry teacher lives.  She’s going strong in her late 80s. I spent the afternoon at the home of my long-time pal JB.  She’s a lawyer.  We had stopped by her office Friday to chat, but she was too busy, and important, to see us. 

Saturday night was the last hurrah, live from Monroe, NY. Some new faces that had not made the Friday get together showed up.  The grub was good and I believe we elected class officers for life, but I wasn’t paying too much attention. We’re pushing 60 but we partied past midnight and rekindled a lot of old friendships.

I’d like to give a shout out to Annie, MOC and The UK for all they did to pull this thing together.  A great time was had by all.