It's Almost Over

School, that is. Bug has a half-day on Monday and that's it for the summer. AND she lost her upper front tooth last night! Why do they always fall out when it's too late for the tooth fairy to go to the store and pick up a gift? You have to swear to never tell her this, but I had a gift card in my wallet leftover from Emma's birthday that still has a bit of a balance on it. I gave her that and told her that the tooth fairy gave her a gift card from Walmart to put with her birthday gift cards that are going towards the purchase of her new bike. So it doesn't matter if THAT particular card actually has $3 left on it since we all know that I'm the tooth fairy and that money's coming out of my wallet in the end anyway.

No one needs to be any the wiser now, do they?

I finished up the two gifts for the special ed aides that help out in Bug's class. I made them cotton sachets and I'll pick up a couple bars of pretty soap to put in them and she can give them on Monday. She'll write them nice thank you notes this weekend. I think we'll give Kathy the bus driver a pair of fingerless mittens. She's awfully nice.

I'm still working on the socks but I didn't get much done yesterday. I tore apart my house looking for pictures!

My 20 year class reunion is this summer. I was invited to the committee meeting on Wednesday so that I could help with the creative aspect of the planning. The nuts and bolts and business end are all taken care of. I'm in charge of fun things to do at the reunion dinner/dance itself. So far, so good.

Let me tell you about my class.

I graduated with the best class EVER. In the history of classes. They told me that I probably would lose touch with my friends from HS and my college friends would be the friends I'd have my whole life. Well, they were wrong. With the exception of Bob--you remember Friend Bob?--(Hey, Boob! I miss you!) my closest friends are from my hometown.

Perhaps that's because I still live in my hometown, and many of us never went too far. Our kids go to the same school we went to. For that matter, Bug is the fourth generation of my family to attend that school. It's a good school. I'm lucky, and I know it.

But my class. Some less generous educators who shall remain nameless (for now) have classified us as "under-achievers". We would like to add, "...and proud of it!" to that less-than-flattering title. I'll grant you, we had and still have some slackers in the class. But I prefer to think of the bulk of my class as persons with very simple needs and wants in life.

Thirty-three percent of our class went on to college. I would be surprised if half of us that went ever actually finished. It's not that we're lazy. We just knew that going to college just as education for education's sake was going to cost a lot of money. Most of my classmates went out and entered right into the work force and worked their way up in the world. Today a lot of my friends are where they are because learned what they needed to know on the job and not in four more years in a classroom. I kind of wish I'd taken that route too. I have a Bachelor of Arts degree in Technical Theater. That and $2.50 will buy me an iced coffee from Dunkin Donuts.

So despite being inaccurately labeled as "slackers," we were the class that could get things done. If it was important enough to us. We couldn't hold a successful fundraiser to save our lives. The class trip just wasn't that important. We could have pitched tents in someone's field, lit a bonfire, tapped a keg and had a great time. It was about being together, not the destination.

Every year the senior class would have the Senior Parade. Kids with cars (which was most of us) would decorate them and we'd drive around the block, past the high school and the cheers of the underclassmen. Our class ramped it up with several smoke shows in the parking lot. You ever see a smoke show? You pour bleach under the tires while the driver guns the engine and spins the tires. Smoke and squealing tires! It's awesome! And apparently, illegal.

Anyway, four classmates each got $40 tickets that day from the local police for "misuse of power" violations. We passed the hat and had raised the $160 bucks to pay them by lunchtime. If we were going to cheer on the violator, we were sure as hell going to bail him out. Friends stick together.

We were the class that did things just for the fun of it. One day, one of the guys passed the word through the class that the next day was going to be the First Annual Louie Louie Day and we were to come to school in our best beach attire. We met up in the hallway before school and when the first bell rang, at least half the class followed him with the boom box blasting Louie Louie as we sang and danced up and down the halls, passed classrooms and the main office. It was a bit subversive, but harmless, and it made everyone smile.

The time we built a giant snow penis didn't go over as well.

Every year we had a Winter Carnival, and one of the events was the snow sculpture contest. Each class got a pile of snow and had a week to make it into a sculpture. Well, we had an artist in the class that could envision and draw just about anything, and another kid that was able to take any idea you could think of and figure out how to make it work. They were an unbeatable combination to have on your side for a snow sculpture contest.

We adopted Mickey Mouse as our mascot and I know we won for our gigantic sculptures of Mickey riding the Space Shuttle, and another year for King Mickey sitting on a huge throne. We also had a couple of classmates with Indian pumps that would add dye to water and spray the whole thing so that it would be in color and then ice over so that it wouldn't melt as quickly.

One day, either deep into the night or frightfully early in the morning, some members of my class snuck up to school and built a giant snow penis on the front lawn of the school. It apparently went unnoticed by the staff and faculty (or they thought it was great and didn't say anything) until mid-morning, when the principal went out with a broom and proceeded to knock it down.

I don't know what was funnier: seeing a giant snow penis on the front lawn of the school, or watching the principal do battle with it armed with only a straw broom.

I don't believe they ever caught the culprits. But I have a pretty good idea of who was behind it. And I'm not tellin'.

We were accused of not being joiners. That is, the clubs at school were not heavily populated with members of my class. We didn't run the student council. But it's not that we weren't interested. Most of us had jobs. It's hard to play soccer or compete in mathalons if you've got a work schedule as well.

And one thing we lacked was clicques. There were groups of friends that hung around together, but the boundaries weren't hard and fast, and they weren't drawn along stereotypical lines. We never had kids that were just jocks or just brains or whatever. Maybe it's because it's a small school, but we were all a couple of things anyway. So it didn't matter if you played volleyball and were on the honor society, we might see you at the party in the sandpit with a beer in your hand that weekend anyway with a handful of the partyers. One of whom was the class president and was in no clubs because he had a job after school. Anyone in the class could and would sit down with anyone else in the class and have lunch or a chat or get help with the homework because that's the kind of class we had.

One teacher summed us up the best, and it's something we've never forgotten. She told us one day that while we didn't have the grades that the other classes did, and we didn't have record-breaking athletic stars, we had something that was better, though harder to measure. We had personality. We were a fun class who knew who we were and we were damn sure not going to try to live up to someone else's standards.

I think it summed us up in a nutshell.

Today, twenty years after graduating, I can sit down with my classmates and laugh and have a couple of beers and it's like the last 20 years never happened. We're older, grayer, balder, and fatter, but we still make each other laugh.

It's why my class reunion is going to ROCK and why I wouldn't miss it for the world.