… Kates and I are back home. We touched down safely at O’Hare yesterday afternoon. Made the drive back here. And when I pulled in the garage, I leaned back in my seat and said, The time machine has landed.
Yep. We’re back to reality. Though I’ll be riding the familiar faces, smiles, memorable sites and conversations for awhile. The last time I felt this way, this nostaglic, was the days after Kates and I got married. And all of those images and good memories from our wedding day played on a loop in my head …
Not wanting to let go just yet, after Kates and I got home last night, I was quick to pull out my senior yearbook and old photo albums, pouring over all of the images from those days and pointing out the faces we’d spent time with on Saturday. We even pulled out a couple of the video tapes from my senior year, watching the senior recognition ceremony and hearing the choir sing and laughing with the speeches once more sent chills down my spine at the memories of how joyous and special of a time that was ...
Back to Saturday morning … Kates and I had skipped out on the first of my 10-year reunion gatherings Friday night to hit the Royals game. I’d heard later, on Saturday, that the crowd was good and it was a fun time, but I just wasn’t hip to the idea of cramming into a small bar with a hundred or so people …
So my first reunion experience was Saturday morning. On the docket was a picnic gathering at the infamous Heritage Park -- the scenic park/golf course/lake where I’d spent several evenings as a teenager hanging out with friends. It also was where we had our senior picnic 10 years ago …
On the way to the park, Kates and I stopped at Panera for bagels and drinks. I got the Mocha Almond ( … and I got it again on my way out this morning. Kates and I had our Friday afternoon lunch, our Saturday morning breakfast and our Sunday morning breakfast all at the Panera across from our hotel. And with that Mocha, I think I’ve found a new favorite drink.).
Driving into Olathe was yet another mind-boggling experience. The two-lane country roads that I once drove for shortcuts to the mall or to movie theaters or to friends’ houses were now six-lane parkways with stoplights and blooming landscapes and fountains and ritzy subdivisions and shopping centers …
The McDonald’s that used to sit by itself on a corner some blocks from our house is now surrounded by a couple gas stations and a couple neighborhoods. And the 7-Eleven across the street where me, Joel and our neighborhood friends would ride our bikes to get Slurpees and baseball cards, and where I bought my first tanks of gas (it was $10 to fill a whole tank back then …) has been bulldozed. A Walgreens stands in its place now.
Once at the park, we found our designated shelter and parked our shiny Malibu. But my heart sank a little when I looked into the shelter area and saw a smattering of people who seemed less than enthusiastic to be there. And I recognized almost none of them …
Then, in a corner, sitting on a blanket with a blond woman and a small child, surrounded by a bounty of plastic toys and stuff animals, was a classmate I did recognize. He recognized me too, stood up from his blanket and reached out to shake my hand. We exchanged introductions with our wives, and dove into some adult conversation. My reunion was underway ...
The crazy part about it was that in high school, I idolized this guy. He was a star point guard on our powerhouse basketball team, which made an appearance in the state tournament every year, went undefeated our junior year before losing the championship game to a Wichita team, and then finally won a championship our senior year. The last time I saw him was our freshman year of college after he went off to play basketball at Wyoming and a contingent of our senior class traveled up to Omaha to watch him play at Creighton. I’d barely talked to him in high school, other than the occasional interview for the school newspaper ...
And that's how the weekend would go. We were adults now. We'd let our guards down and the stereotypes and clicks had been washed away ... Crazy how that happens ...
As more of my old friends and classmates arrived, with small children in tow, I marveled at how much things had changed, and yet it seemed as though nothing had changed at all. Generally people looked the same and we connected in much of the same ways that brought us together as friends years ago. Above all, it hardly seems like it's been 10 years ...
And now instead of the latest relationship gossip or the test on Monday, our conversations were about pay scales and homes and babies, their sleeping patterns, hospital visits and breast feeding …
By 12:30 in the afternoon, people were starting to clear from the park. And Kates and I had stayed more than an hour longer than we’d planned, but that was a good thing. The conversation had been far more interesting than I’d expected. We said our good-byes to the group and left feeling eager for the evening gathering …
* * *
From the park, with the afternoon open and free, I took Kates on a reunion tour through Olathe and my old neighborhood. Down Blackbob Road and through the winding subdivision roads where I once out-drove a cop pursuing me because I accidentally forgot to turn on my headlights ( … I realized they were off and flipped them on the moment I saw the police car turning around to come after me, which is perhaps why he didn’t pursue me more aggressively -- because I turned on my lights and was heading straight home. He followed me all the way to my driveway and then passed by as I got out of the car and walked in the house. That was on the eve of my departure to college. It was a stupid, stupid thing to do. And I'll never forget it …)
We drove past Green Springs, the elementary school that Joel attended at the end of our street. And then made the turn onto Shannan Street. My old street. Another mind-blower. Ours was one of the first houses to be built in the neighborhood. I literally watched all of the surrounding houses go up. Now, they all seemed old somehow. Now, the trees seemed to tower over the street …
Slowly, I drove past my old house; I just gazed out the window. There, too, the trees were tall. The current owners have added onto the back side of the garage and a giant white trellis stands off the other side of the house. The beautiful landscape remained and the owners appear to be taking care of the yard my parents put such time and effort into cultivating. That was nice to see …
From there, we headed to 143rd, past the Wheatland subdivision and the firehouse. We drove past Frontier Trail, where I attended junior high school. The red brick and royal blue trim remains as polished as it did when I was a seventh-grader there. But gone was the large brick sign that sat in the middle of the front lawn, and with it my Eagle Scout project where I planted landscaping around the sign during my freshman year … Sigh. Thirteen years was a good run, I guess. The landscaping and benches my brother installed in front of Green Springs for his Eagle project barely survived a year before it was replaced with a new addition to that building …
We drove down the hill past Prince of Peace, and back up toward Mur-Len Road. I marveled at the growth on the Nazarene University campus, and again, the tall trees, which now blocked any view inside the football stadium … We turned on Mur-Len and headed past Tom’s neighborhood, and Tad’s neighborhood, up to 151st Street. The Dillon’s grocery store was still there. So was the Capitol Federal bank. But a new shopping center had replaced the Hardee’s and other stores at that corner …
Further down 151st Street we came to my old high school, which has remained largely unchanged, aside from a small addition to the wrestling room and locker rooms on the back of the building. We drove around the entire campus, and again I couldn’t help but be amazed that 10 years had passed since we walked those halls … I badly wanted to go inside, but was afraid of causing trouble for some office worker who’s duty it was to scrutinize every unfamiliar face that passed through the door. We are living in an age of tighter school security, after all ..
We continued. Past Indian Trail Junior High (which still had its sign on the front lawn … sigh.) And past the Garmin campus, which was just being built a decade ago, and now it’s a gazillion-dollar corporation. Crazy …
We drove past the Great Mall of the Great Plains (watched that thing go up too ...). And past my old church, which has been turned into a mission center. Past the old Central Elementary School. Through downtown and the courthouse square, and then we “Cruised the Fe” on our way back to our hotel. Past the Perkins where we spent many, many, many (many!) late nights. Past the old movie theater. And past Price Chopper, the grocery store where I had my first-paying job, sacking groceries …
Yep. So much had changed. And yet nothing had changed at all ...
* * *
After killing the afternoon with lunch from the KenTacoHut, a nap and some TV, Kates and I headed off to the KC Wine Bar for the big reunion gathering ...
Kates had straightened her hair for the occasion, and she looked beautiful as ever, wearing a black dress with white pok-a-dots. I had chosen to wear a pair of brown slacks with a blue, button-down dress shirt. We looked gooood …
As I parked the car outside the wine bar, grabbed Kates’ hand and we started toward the building, my heart started to speed up … For years, I had been anticipated this night and tried to imagine what it might be like. John Mayer’s lyric from “No Such Thing” -- I just can’t wait 'til my 10-year reunion / I’m gonna bust down the double-doors -- was playing over and over in my head …
But rather than bust down the double doors, Kates and I just sort of passed through them slow and curiously ... There to greet me with a hug was my good friend Sara, aka our senior class president/the head party planner. We accepted our nametags and were directed toward the back of the long, narrow, but elegant bar and banquet hall …
Around the corner, the faces were far more recognizable then they had been earlier that morning at the picnic gathering. Greetings were exchanged, and conversations picked up where they'd left off 10 years ago. I felt like a high school senior all over again ...
Almost all the people I was eager to see and watnted to catchup with were there, including some of my closest high school friends, who I've managed to keep contact with but hadn't seen in several years ...
… As the night went on, we indulged in a buffet of cheese, crackers, veggies, cake and varied finger food. And unlimited beer and wine. Sara and the planning committee also pulled out the old senior slide show. And they raided the school store to give away T-shirts and other door prizes …
But, oh, the beer. I’ve never considered myself much of a drinker, but when I do imbibe, I can gauge how relaxed I’m feeling by the amount of alcohol I can drink. I discovered that in college when friends and I would walk down to The Pub, and on nights when I was under a lot of stress or even the slightest thing was misaligned, I could barely down one beer. On the nights I was feeling at ease with things in my life and the people around me, I could drink ‘em like water. Though I usually stopped at about three … On Saturday night, I lost count at five. I can’t illustrate how relaxed and how much fun I was having any more than that …
By 11:30, the crowd was thinning and we began to say our good-byes. There were tight hugs all around … But it was good to know it wouldn’t be 10 years before most of us saw each other again. Stacy lives in the Chicago area too. And I’ll be seeing Jocelyn and Tad again September when Tad finally settles down and ties the knot ...
As we walked out of the bar, I handed Kates the keys and I was all smiles. I had come in with low expectations and I had been nervous. I was leaving knowing it had been everything I had hoped and wanted it to be …
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