Suddenly the academic past comes crowding in. Apparently the weekend past was the tenth reunion of my college class. Either today or a week ago today is the fifteenth anniversary of my high school graduation.
Christ, I’m old.
I was asked, some weeks ago, whether I’d be at the high school reunion shindig in October. My answer, paraphrased, was “I never say never but it would be a cold day in hell.” Two college friends I hadn’t seen in nearly three years showed up unexpectedly last weekend to do the reunion thing and I instead mounted up and headed out to drink heavily in funny clothes.
I know people who look back with unbridled nostalgia on high school. I know others who consider their college days the highpoint of their lives. I can remember a few good times in high school and I can remember doing some particularly odd things in college but my nostalgia level for both is pretty low. My ideal time of life, the one that’s never been topped, is the two years after college.
Man, life was good then. I got paid peanuts but I didn’t have to go to work until noon and I got home just as the nightly specials started at the bar. The summer after graduation I fell in with a beautiful woman and the summer after that I met another who remains one of the two people from the college years I’m still close to. One great friend was still in school and I made another who lived next door; every day was a drunken laughfest.
Those winters and springs consisted of going to work and having a delightful time shooting the shit, playing Duke Nukem and watching ham-fisted college techo-gits try to hit on the girls whose PCs they were fixing. The nights consisted of meeting my bros at the bar and drinking the place closed. The bartenders were so good, and so accustomed to our nightly appearance, the pitcher and glasses would be filled by the time we rounded the corner.
Summers put me on an earlier schedule so I was forced to play hooky and show up about 9 most mornings. As soon as the clock ticked over to quitting time it was off to the dirt bar across the street to pick up 40s of Olde English and up the fire escape to my pal’s joint next door where the silliness would commence. Weekdays we drank ourselves to sleep. Weekends we wore funny clothes and annoyed tourists. What a hoolie.
Those were high times. Broke, drunk and mostly optimistic. Now folks are mostly married, kids are contemplated, the older generation is rapidly dying off and I’m not one block – but a long way – removed from the high times. Life ain’t bad, but it ain’t pretty either.