Getting Ready for the Law School Reunion

I opened up my email last week, and tucked in between the email from the Zappo’s wanting to sell me a pair of shoes and Citibank offering me another “got to have” low interest credit card was an email from a law school chum of mine that I talk to several times a year. He was passing on a message from another of my law school classmates that it was time to plan for our 35th class reunion (Ohio Northern Law School/Class of 1975) in spring of 2010. Ouch. 35 years? Hard to believe!! It sure doesn’t feel like 35 years, but then again….

I have never been a fan of school reunions. My insecurities float to the surface like scum on a pond. Believe me, there is a lot of scum. I looked at myself in the mirror: my balding head, my expanded girth, the rings under my eyes, my sagging chin (not that I ever had one to start with), and the various wrinkles and growths that magically have appeared on my face over the years. As a comedian once said: How did a hair grow there? All I could think of is that I have 13 months to lose a hundred pounds.

I dutifully followed my friend’s instructions, and added my name to the circulating email list. I got a rousing welcome to the email list from the organizer. I made reservations for June, 2010, at the new Inn at Ohio Northern University. My emails have been on the increase as old friends meet with old friends reminiscing about days past. The emails, whatever else might have changed, clearly show that our sparkling personalities remain intact. Even on the internet, we are now as we were then. Some things don’t change. For a few days, I was 22 again, living in a boarding house that first fall quarter in Ada, Ohio, waiting to get married over Thanksgiving.

Of course, insecurities stem not only from appearance, but from achievement. Did my life turn out the way I had hoped? Did I disappoint my family? Have I achieved professional success? Have I achieved financial success? How do I compare to everyone else? It’s easy to say those things don’t count. I got news for you, they do. We are only human, and I think that each of us is our own harshest critic. Being a lawyer makes it worse as my profession tends to thrive on bravado, something I sorely lack notwithstanding the name of my blog site!! I really don’t know it all, only most things.

So it is with a combination of excitement and trepidation that I embark on my exercise and weight control program to make myself presentable to my fellow classmates. I will gird my loins and gather up my courage to go forward over the next year. I will try to skim some scum off of the insecurity pond…and take some pills if that doesn’t work. I will go to Google maps to try to remember how the hell I get to Ada (haven’t been there since graduation). I will buy a bottle of Old Crow, and listen to country music remembering how some of us spent our spare time in a town where the wheat combine operated outside your front door. And in the meantime I will keep reading the emails from my friends and classmates as they remember funny stories, tell each other about their families, and we generally remind ourselves that although we can't go home again, the ride there can be familiar.

Let’s see. The school colors were orange and black, and my class forced the school to take our diplomas back and replace them with ones that didn’t look like Happy Halloween. I wonder if the Polar Bear Inn is still across the street from the university. Then there was the beer joint by the train tracks. My wife wants to visit Lima South Junior High School where she had her first teaching experience. The school was old then and I bet it isn’t there anymore.

This should be fun. We'll go with that!!!

Picture Courtesy Flickr Common Attribution: Dyers18; Some Rights Reserved