In midsummer (last year), I returned to Wyoming for my dad’s 91st birthday and the fourth 10-year anniversary of my 10-year high school reunion. For those of you not good at math, that means I may have been attending my 40th reunion. No matter how it might have felt, indeed, it was the 40th. We all ask it but I ask it here again…where the heck does the time go? And how am I old enough to be attending my 40th high school reunion when I just graduated, like, 10 minutes ago?

Well, I must leave those big questions to the philosophers among us as I have no freakin’ idea.

The experience was amazing and fun, so much more amazing and fun than I ever imagined it could be. In between the reminiscing and silliness, I thought about how the experience was different from the 20th reunion I attended (I missed the 10th and 30th). During and after, I found my brain whirling with memories, pondering strange traditions, and thinking profound thoughts. Okay, maybe not profound to you but, still, profound to me.

In today’s post, I must set the stage. Though, to be honest, if you have ever been to a high school reunion, you know the stage. Only the players differ. You’ll have to come back next week to hear the observations and profound insights, such as they are.

Wall mural with town name, Laramie.

Context: Laramie’s Jubilee Days

You might have heard of Frontier Days in Cheyenne, Wyoming, at the end of July. It’s huge, bringing 200,000 people to Cheyenne. The purse for rodeo participants is not small and the concert entertainment features the biggies in country music.

Well, two weeks earlier and 45 miles away, in Laramie, we have Jubilee Days which celebrates Wyoming statehood. It runs 10 days in July—two weekends and the weekdays in between. It’s easy for me to remember because the official day of statehood is also my dad’s birthday and Jubilee Days will always include that date.

We have the same basic events as Frontier Days—parade, carnival, street dances and food and, of course, a rodeo. But everything is on a smaller scale. I couldn’t find numbers. But I’d guess it brings about 10,000 to town for the festivities. This is a complete and random guess. In a town that includes the only 4-year university in the state, it can be hard to separate university-related traffic from other traffic. No doubt people smarter than me know how to do this and know the number of visitors who arrive for Jubilee Days.

That said, a notable portion of the out-of-town visitors come in for their high school reunions. It makes sense. First, reunion classes ride on a float in the parade. Second, for those who no longer have family in town, they come during one of most fun festive times with lots of things to do.

During the weekend, I saw people from the classes of 1964 (they all promised in a blink, we’d be as old as them), 1974, 2004 (we promised in a blink, they’d be as old as us) and there was another class at the same park we used for their picnic but I didn’t hear what class they were from.

In the Weeds

For this reunion, I was on the planning committee. Thirteen people spent a year putting plans in place, signing contracts, raising money, and working through the smallest of details to make sure the 3-day weekend was meaningful for our classmates.

I have to say the best part about it was connecting with so many people I hadn’t spent time with or really known during our time in school. The worse part was that it wasn’t necessarily easy or particularly fun. It was a lot of work. A fellow committee member kept referencing the “herding cats” expression.

But here’s the thing…she meant it, not in the funny quirky way the expression is often used, but in the frustrating literal way that drives a person nutty. This was especially true for someone like me who, as you know, is uber organized, orderly and precise. Even after its completion, I continue to think about the ways it could’ve and should’ve been better.

The good news is that while behind the scenes was chaos, like all good events, our classmates had no idea. Over and over again, the feedback was that a wonderful time was had by all.

The Weird and the Strange

Here we are, tossing candy, waving and getting doused.

Parade

All the classes ride on floats in the parade, waving, throwing candy and, some (despite it being 9 o’clock in the morning), drinking beer. I remember attending the parade every year as a kid. I remember the candy and being bored by the bands and the floats that didn’t offer any.

But what I don’t remember is the water. No idea how or when or why this started…but it’s a thing. Spectators douse reunion floats—only reunion floats—with water. They bring tubs and coolers and tanks filled with water. It hits reunion participants in the form of water balloons, squirt guns—serious squirt guns, not the little ones we played with as kids—and hoses. Yes, hoses.

So here is the question…is this a weird Laramie thing or do other towns do this to their returning graduates? It strikes me as so specifically strangely Laramie but I truly have no idea.

From the view of being on the flat bed truck being pelted by water in every form. The insanity!

And one more from the point of view of someone dousing us. (Thanks, Bobbi, for the use of your video.)

Local Classmates

A notable number of local classmates didn’t attend, didn’t even make an appearance. I wasn’t the only one who noticed this. Why is that, do you think?

The only thing I can come up with is they see each other while shopping for groceries, dropping kids (now, grandkids) off at school. You know, the mundane chores of daily life. In other words, there is no novelty in going to a party with people you see regularly anyway.

I don’t know. This only half explains it because they certainly don’t see those of us who traveled from far and wide to be there for the weekend. Furthermore, they have it easy compared to the rest of us who need to take time away from work, make travel and hotel and dog-sitting arrangements, etc. etc.

If you have any insight into this phenomenon, please share.

Going Stag

This observation I found odd at first but after some thought it made perfect sense. Many of my paired-up (married or otherwise) classmates came stag. I wondered why would the people in their lives not jump at the chance to meet the people of their partner’s growing up years.

Why, indeed? The thing that became clear: at a reunion you aren’t really talking about the person you have become. Yes, you go through your life’s list: where you live, occupation, kids, grandkids. But, really, you talk more about the person you were when they knew you. You talk about the experiences and memories you share.

I cannot begin to count the number of times I heard, “Do you remember when…” Those are the gems, the rich moments when you are flooded with a memory you hadn’t thought about in years. Maybe would not have even remembered if someone hadn’t triggered you to open that particular dusty old mind filing cabinet. This, I imagine, boring a partner silly as they have no point of reference to these memories of the past. Can’t you just see a spouse standing by counting down the minutes until it’s time to leave? Or at least counting down the minutes until the next cocktail.

Going Stag: An Alternate Theory

It was suggested to me that going stag might not have anything to with a partner’s boredom and everything to do with the possibility of reliving the glory days of wild abandon. Or maybe living for the first time the wild abandon that passed you by during those glory days of high school. You know what I’m talking about.

Drunken revelry and hooking up.

Did any of this happen at my own reunion? With my hands covering my eyes, ears and mouth, I will simply say I have no comment on this matter. And, for the record, if asked, I’ll quote two of my friends when I asked them.

  • “Nope. I was drunk. Nothing to remember.” And
  • “What? We had a reunion? I don’t recall anything.”

Many years ago, my dad told me a story from one of his reunions. It involved one of his classmates climbing out and jumping down from a second story hotel window to escape a room that was not his own. The window, as it happened, overlooked the pool where classmates cocktailed and reminisced.

Obviously, the attempt at stealthy debauchery was kind of lost. But it makes for the great story at all the reunions that followed.

Ready for the Profound Thoughts I Promised?

Okay, the stage is set. Can you see it? The festivities of a tiny town in the middle of summer.

All the work to set the stage, you’ll have to return next week to read about the thoughts that sprung up for me during the weekend.

Would love to hear any observations you have had about your own high school reunions.

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