Tuesday, October 03, 2006

I heard somewhere that whoever you were in high school, that's who you'll be for the rest of your life.

Stupid sayings like that beg for mockery.

Unlike who I am today, in high school I was a physically awkward, geeky, smart alecky.... Ok, that stuff hasn't changed a lot, but there's more to me than just that. For example, back in high school I enjoyed activities like reading, films, computer programming.... Dang. Ok, all kidding aside, we're just being superficial here. When it came to more thoughtful matters, in high school I was a politically incorrect, left-leaning, agnostic who....

Hmmph.

Ok, so I'm exactly who I was in high school.

Well then, I guess it'll be easy for my classmates to recognize me this weekend at my 20 Year High School Reunion. Yeah, 20 freakin' years.

Our high school had all the usual cliques one would see in a movie. We had the jocks, the stoners, the geeks, the popular people, the drama crowd, the band geeks, the rockers, the 80's rockers, and a few unidentifiable groups. Unsurprisingly, I was a core member of the geeks. The table where we met for lunch each day was christened "Geek Gulch" by people much cooler than us. That moniker was ok with me. Alliteration dulls the pain.

I wasn't necessarily thrilled with my place in life back in high school, but after living in this skin for another 20 years, I've become pretty comfortable with it. There are worse things than being a nerd. I mean, hey, I've got a blog! How many people can say that?

I'm actually looking forward to the reunion. High school wasn't really a bad time for me. I've got no axes to grind. Also, along with my wife, I'll be going with one of my best friends from high school and my high school sweetheart. The three of us have loosely stayed in touch over the years. I've let all the other high school friendships lapse because I am generally a lazy and bad friend. Those two friends are the only ones who didn't write me off for it. Good folk.

Anyway, I've only got a few days left to build up some muscles. See ya.

4 comments:

zelda1 said...

I was pretty much a stoner. My crowd didn't care about the other groups, we just cared about JJ and CCR and other cool makers of good music and the maximum dubbie. But, when I went back for my first of many high school reunions, I was so surprised to see that the extremely preppy folks were the ones who had changed the most. The geeks still in marginal geekdom, the stoners still stoning but some do it legally these days, and the rest were pretty much where we left them, but those popular jocks and preppy homecoming queens, wow, they didn't handle grown up life well at all. Somewhere in the mix, the queens were unable to make it through college and ended up with big hair and poorly stuffed bras, and lots and lots of baggage and the jocks, wow, it's amazing what a year after high school does to those boys who are still eating all those calories and drinking all that beer but not running around the foot ball field. Yep, big bellies. I think you'll be surprised how well the geeks look and even the stoners and how badly the others have aged. Pretty people, strong people, and those who live for fashion, well, they just don't age well.

Mike said...

I'll report back if my experience is similar. I've got a hunch that some of those pretty people are still going to look darn purty.

Miss Misse said...

Take lots of pictures! Have fun.
And how about a picture on here of you in those high school days?

Mike said...

Miss Misse, ok, I'll try to find an old picture. I mostly look the same except my hair is less shaggy. And of course my man boobs are much bigger now.