Landslide

Time makes you bolder Children get older I'm getting older too

So go the immortal words (can words be mortal? What distinguishes the mortal words from the immortal words?) of one Ms. Stevie Nicks. I've never been a particularly big Fleetwood Mac fan, but I've always thought Landslide was a pretty good song... hell, I was one of two people who liked the Smashing Pumpkins' version.

The other person was Billy Corgan.

Anyway, perhaps my attraction to this song has to do with its subject matter, namely, time and getting older. I've already (over) documented my feelings on time, but this week I've been even more preoccupied with it due to the fact that I attended my 10 year high school reunion on Saturday night. Indeed. The 1995 Class of Oak Park/River Forest High School reunion was at the bar Fitzgerald's in Berwyn (that's BEEERRRR-wyynnnnn for you Sven-Goolie fans).

Gina and I didn't get there until a little after 10:00 pm, and this was a smart move. The prospect of being in the bar when the reunion started at 8:00 pm and sitting around stone-cold sober watching people file in was too much for me to handle. And I had a gig. So by the time we got there, it was packed and most of the crowd was already several or more drinks into their magical liquid coping mechanisms.

And I joined them via the wings of Guinness immediately upon arrival. Overall, it was actually a great time. As I hoped, I saw a lot of people with whom I hadn't kept in touch. And almost everybody seemed to be doing pretty well for themselves. Of course there were a few people who looked like they'd had a bad decade but... them's the breaks I guess. And secretly (or not so) everybody goes to high school reunions to see the trainwrecks, right?

My favorite moment was when my senior year Valetine's Day Dance date didn't recognize me. That episode and other's reactions to my appearance reminded me: in high school, I had a crew cut, no facial hair, and weighed 145 pounds. And now I look like a well-fed Jesus. People did a lot of hanging around with their lunch groups and I guess I understand that... nobody seemed to be harboring any decade-old hatred towards me for some perceived social slight. Not that I was really in the position to do much social slighting in high school.

And to this it's only 10 years until our next reunion.

On an unrelated note, I have figured out how to solve our current summer drought: I will just water our plants everyday. Because last night, not 30 minutes after I spent an hour carefully wetting our parched backyard, the previously cloudless sky started laughing at me and laughed so hard it cried.

jbg