We’ve hit the most dreaded season of all; Not swimsuit season; not hotter than all heck
season; and not tick and chigger season.
During the next three months, most high schools and colleges will host
their annual class reunions. Groan with
me now, won’t ya?
Unless you are head cheerleader or student body president,
class reunions are probably not your thing.
The four years you spent in high school or college are more than likely four years
you’ll remember with a brief smile, followed by a slight grimace and then
you’ll find yourself uttering words that go something like this, “I’d never
want to go back.” Truth.
The truth is that I want to know how my classmates – high
school and college – are doing. I
genuinely wish them all well. Except for
that couple that were always in the hallway when I had to go to the bathroom and
they’d glare at me as if to remove my frontal lobe with their laser vision if I
were to tattle that they were always in the halls. I don’t wish them well at all.
I did attend my twenty-fifth class reunion a few years
ago. I graduated when I was 6 years
old. I had fun and it was nice to see some old
friends in person and to get reacquainted with people I had lost touch
with. But what I loved most of all was The Book. The Book is something every
class compiles. Weeks before the
reunion, they send you a form and ask you to tell us all what you’ve been up to
lately. This is where you talk about
marrying the captain of the varsity team and how you have beautiful children
who’ve been approached to be catalog models and how you’ve excelled beyond
anyone else at a Fortune 500 company.
It’s basically a “best of” Christmas letter for your classmates. I loved reading mine.
The Harvard graduating class of 1962
did not love The Book for their recent fiftieth reunion. Apparently, Ivy Leaguers are snobby in that
they did not appreciate that the reunion committee included excerpts from
everyone…including their most infamous graduate: Ted Kaczynski. Don’t recognize the name? He’s also know as (or AKA in the circles he
runs in now) The Unabomber.
The reunion committee sent
out the questionnaires to all graduates, including Ted (care of the Federal Prison
System, cell #525), and Ted obliged returning his “What I’ve Been Up To”
survey. Really, what else does he have
to do? The graduates are not upset about
that.
They are upset because the
committee included Ted’s responses in The Book.
Ted's answer to Awards - "Eight life
sentences, issued by the United States District Court for the Eastern District
of California, 1998." Apparently
not every graduate has eight awards to their names.
The
committee has issued a public apology stating they regret publishing Ted’s responses
and are sincerely sorry for any distress it may have caused the graduates.
I,
probably because I’m not an Ivy League alum, think it’s funny. I’d
have laughed right out loud if I had read The Book at the reunion. I wouldn’t have laughed because his responses
were funny. I wouldn’t have laughed
because his crimes were autrocious. I
would have laughed because I would have gotten to see the head of the reunion
committee – who was probably head of everything else in school – flub up big
time by even sending him a reunion invitation.
Sometimes it's alright to go back to high school.
