My 50th high school reunion is this weekend

And I know we'll enjoy scintillating conversations

“My 50th high school reunion is this weekend. Want to come?”

Ellen smiled back at me across the dinner table. “No, thanks, sweetheart. I don’t know anyone who went to Rincon. I went to Sahuaro. You’ll have fun.”

Fun?

I made my best weak argument. “Alrighty then. You’ll miss some great conversation.”

For example I predict we’ll hear a bit of this:

“We have seen a lot of change in 50-years.”

“I’ll say. You’ve changed so much you’re unrecognizable. I have no clue who you are.”

“Yeah. I don’t recognize anyone. Especially you. Looks like a ballroom full of Yodas in bola ties among the Golden Girls. Is this a party or an AARP conference?”

“I think we’re on the set of ‘Cocoon 2’. The Maalox cash bar is doing a brisk business.”

Cast of Ron Howard’s Oscar-winning film “Cocoon” which follows what happens when attendees of Rincon High’s 50th Reunion fall into the Westward Look pool.

“I don’t remember your name.”

“From high school?”

“No. From a minute ago. When you told me who you were.”

“What does your name tag say?”

“That’s my prescription and dosage in case I go ‘silver alert’ rogue tonight.''

“If that happens I have a smart phone and a pot card.”

“What gummies do you chew?

“Sativa. And Indica.”

“I dated them in high school. Are they here?”

“Wow. She still looks hot.”

She’s still hot.

“I’ll say. And he’s still an asshat fifty-years later.”

Still an asshat.

Rincon High school was huge in 1973. We had approximately a billion students enrolled on our campus. I was one of about 600 kids who graduated that year. With that many classmates and the passage of half a century it’s bound to be an unforgettable last roundup.

Aerial view of Planet Earth’s greatest public high school

“They were high school sweethearts and they’re still married?”

“Who’s still buried?”

“Buried? Who died?”

“Please don’t tell me the name of each great grandchild in your picture on your phone. I don’t expect to live that long.”

“This resort has everything. They’ve got all kinds of lotions and clean towels and defibrillators.”

“I said I just got these new hearing aids. They’re great.”

“What? We’re late?”

“I can’t remember a damned thing from before 1986. Still I am one of the luckes.”

I know it will be a wonderful reunion thanks to luck, the pure luck of the right souls agreeing to shepherd Rincon High’s 50th Reunion into existence. Here are the Rangers who gave their all to organizing this festival of fond remembrance: Bill Kelley, Juliana Kipps, Jan Anderson Brownlee, Mike Matz, Miriam Doyle Matz, Jennie Meyer, Monica Weiss and Dave Wolter.

Thank you all.

Dig their kissers in this video. It’s all A.I. We all actually look much, much, much older:

https://www.tribute.co/rincon-high-school-class-of-73/?utm_source=sendgrid.com&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=website

Speaking of luck, my Ozempic pen and I won’t be dining at our cultural center, our source of spiritual sustenance and saturated fat, our palace of fried poultry, the “Lucky Wishbone”. Instead we’ll be dining on kale, metformin and twigs at the Westward Look. And going back in time.

And chatting. “I’ve been retired since 2012. What day is it?”

“She looks like she’s been to the plastic surgeon so many time she’s got Mattel stamped on her butt. Did they use silicon or embalming fluid?”

“The mean girls have not changed one bit. Just look at them.”

“I am loving our 50th reunion! This could be our last chance to have fun together and judge each other.”

“Did he get Botox? And hair plugs? And he thinks no one notices?”

When we went to Rincon it was a golden age for that school. Our teachers were the best. And thanks to them the class of ‘73 was well-prepared to succeed in the world beyond the Catalinas. We were stellar.

“Remember when you puked in the park behind the stadium bleachers and you streaked at graduation!”

“You blew up a toilet in the boys’ room and did what to piss off Ms. Pasquale in the Library?”

Scholarship was our priority

“We made out in the basement under the gym.”

“We made out on ‘A’ mountain. ”

“We made out at the end of Swan in 1973.” I can’t believe I had sex that long ago.

“Hey, we all have some life left in us! Look at Mick Jagger! The Stones are still going strong.”

“What stones? I passed a stone last week. When did you lose your hair?”

“After the first round of chemo.”

“My bad. Good luck.”

“Thanks. You’re quite the hipster.”

“Yeah. Had ‘em both replaced. How’s your pig valve?”

We look pretty good considering we were born before Sputnik. We look like those bubbly “energetic seniors” you see in those lubricated catheter commercials.”

We all had grand plans. Now we have grand kids.

We all had big dreams. Now all we want is a little nap now and then.

We all were beautiful young things. Now we are beautiful young things taken aback by the strangers we see in our mirrors.

We embraced progress. Now we aren’t so sure.

We welcomed astonishing and historic technological, meteorological, and social change in our short lifetimes.

Coming of age in the midst of the revolutionary feminist, gay and Black Civil Rights movements I was optimistic about the possibility of enduring positive change.

Fifty-years later we will be afraid to talk politics with each other in this age of democracy’s peril.

I believe I was born at the right time. When science would keep us alive long past our expiration dates.

“Glad I lived long enough to enjoy this night and see everybody.”

“Every day above ground is a blessing. Did you sit on my Ozempic pen by mistake?”

“We’re not pushing up daisies yet! Have you seen my pill case?”

“Have you pre-planned your funeral?”

“What? Will there be a funeral pre-planning talk after the Depends tutorial or between the school tour and dinner?”

I have more important questions to ask this weekend.

Is that cafeteria window still open where you could buy “Long John” eclairs and then wander across the street to the original EeGee’s truck for a sip of frozen EeGee’s nectar?

Are errant students still punished by being forced to clean the Ranger mosaic with a toothbrush?

Are elevator tickets still sold to unwitting Freshmen?

Whatever became of the custodian’s ladder we stole, leaving the janitor trapped on the roof? Is he still there?

As we argue the virtue of Shakey’s Pizza versus Sambo’s diner I’m praying an intoxicated 68-year old Rincon graduate, high on statins, will challenge us all to stay up past 9 and cruise Speedway.

Before the bacchanal ends, and we bid each other farewell we’ll toast our beloved classmates who have left the range too soon. We will miss you this raucous weekend.

Here’s to the purple and white. Spirit that’s right.

R-r for reasonably still upright.

I-i for still independent.

N-n for never shall our pacemakers fail.

C-c for courage.

O-o for Ozempic.

N-n for never will we forget this weekend.

Rincon Rangers, fight, let’s fight. Bruised and old, spirits bold, together we’ll resist the dimming of the light.

Ever onward, Class of ‘73.