Reunions, Pt. 1

I've always said that you should not forget where you came from. Even if your childhood or your teens or twenties were less than desirable, you need to hang onto whatever heartache or adversity came out of that and learn from it. At the same time, you celebrate the positives and you remember what's been good.

I mention this because I'm in the midst of an interesting stretch of summer. Last weekend, I joined my wife at her 25th high school reunion in Minnesota. Now, playing the role of tag-along-spouse might not sound like the greatest gig, but hell, who doesn't appreciate $1.50 drafts at the American Legion Hall? And I like meeting people. Take this guy, for instance.

This is Bob. And Bob was the only other husband with the guts to show up at this reunion among my wife's group of friends. As you can imagine, Bob don't give a damn. He even packed this shirt in his wife's purse. Ducked into the men's room, Superman-style, and emerged wearing it with a big smile on his face. You might argue with his taste in clothes, but we were there for the same reason -- our wives wanted to spend an evening remembering where they came from, and boy, did they.

Maybe they needed a few hours to laugh about those simpler times, or they were dying to see some long-lost buddies. But for one night, they had a chance to recall what was good, and how far they've come during these past couple of decades.

I've got my own little reunion coming up in a couple of days. A handful of the college guys are gathering on the Connecticut shore for the weekend, and I could not be more ready to go. I'm not sure that those four years at school were the best years of my life, but man, they rank very high. And I don't want to forget that.

Here's another thing I haven't forgotten. About a month before I graduated, I was up late one night at my apartment talking with a roommate. Oh, we were so smart. We had our whole lives figured out. We would have jobs within a month or two of graduating, we'd have houses shortly after that and we'd be married with kids in about five years. That's what we told each other.

Well let's see. I didn't find a job until eight months after graduation, and got laid off five months later. I didn't get married until age 34, didn't own my first house until I was 35. And then the kids (finally) came along. I don't regret how any of it turned out. But that conversation with Mike, who I'll see this weekend, taught me a great life lesson. Sometimes it's dangerous to look too far ahead. But it's always OK to look back.