Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 2, 1995 TAG: 9507050011
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Ten years from the time we graduated from high school, two friends and I would meet atop the hood of David's old, pine green Duster to catch up on our lives.
"We could be anywhere by then," I remember saying.
But we knew that someday, we'd all come back.
We did, in a sense, last weekend, when Blacksburg High School's Class of '85 held its 10-year reunion.
The Duster has been sold - or junked by now. David's married with two kids and driving a Toyota Camry.
I'm not in New York or Europe, but in Blacksburg, living happily with visits to the world outside.
Smita, the third person on the Plymouth hood that day, is at Harvard, a perpetual student with success just a doctorate away.
And the other 100 or so people who returned home last weekend are spread out across the state and country in Winchester, Fairfax, Georgia and Wales.
I saw more of my classmates than I ever thought I'd see again at one time.
Ours was never the most enthusiastic high school class; we thought we'd invented the word "apathy."
Perhaps every teen-ager feels that way at some point - cynical, oppressed by parents and authority, rebels with or without causes.
We graduated, said we'd write, and parted ways to seek our fortunes - to seek life.
Some of us found husbands and wives and jobs as economic analysts.
Others found religion and jobs as actors and architects.
We were sucked into private worlds that we built ourselves, worlds that didn't contain the blue and gold of Blacksburg High School. We became successful, self-assured, well adjusted.
Then came a letter about our 10th-year reunion. With it, four years of insecurities came rushing back.
Grudgingly, I filled out the RSVP. I live only a few blocks away from the Blacksburg Marriott; I had a secret hope of winning an award for "traveling the least distance to attend." (Sadly, no such award was offered.)
In May, I dreamed that I showed up at the reunion, but none of my friends followed suit. I was surrounded by cliques of the preppy and fashion conscious, staring and scrutinizing with raised eyebrows.
I called my closest friends to make sure not all dreams come true, sounding slightly hysterical. "What time will you be there? No, what time EXACTLY?"
In preparation for the event, I gave myself a French manicure, then (remembering that I don't even wear nail polish) dipped my fingers in lemon-scented remover.
Friday night, we entered the Marriott lounge, every one of us with the same, searching look.
We bit cuticles, wadded napkins and chewed straws.
We were all nervous: the cheerleaders, the honors students, the football stars, the geeks.
Reminiscing flowed with the beer, and I began to wish that my high school journals and love notes hadn't turned to ashes at the hands of my Bic lighter.
It can't possibly have been 10 years, we thought.
And then we met children with our classmates' faces.
We saw pictures of ourselves in high school, our bodies smaller, the problems and triumphs we wore on our faces bigger than we'd imagined. (In high school, we thought we'd invented the word "angst," too.)
We looked around at balding heads and padded bellies. OK. So it has been 10 years.
We laughed about that some, too, and danced with people we never really talked to in the unwritten, social code of high school.
We traded e-mail addresses and talked about how the world had changed.
And then we hugged goodbye, realizing that we had, too.
Madelyn Rosenberg is The Roanoke Times' assistant New River editor.
by CNB