"It's hard to dance with the devil on your back"

I've just looked over a four leaf clover where I was overlooked before. For you non-Blue Jays, the paraphrase is from, "Four-leaf Clover," fight song of the mighty Blue Jays of West End High in Nashville, Tenn. The occasion was the 45th anniversery of my high school graduation. Well, almost graduation. I was held back a year as a junior and didn't graduate with the class I had come up with. The class of 63 has kept me on their list, but the class of 64 apparently has disowned me. The reunion weekend included the opening of the school, including an "alumni room" where artifacts from the high school's history are on display. The school was reconfigured as a junior high in 1968 (someone correct this, please) so there are no homecomings to return to and haven't been for decades. This was my first trip back since I escaped with my diploma in June 1964.

When I drove away from campus that year I was piloting a Simca, a 4-door compact car with a cool factor of zilch. It got great gas milage, but gas was 25 cents/gallon. I turned into the parking circle behind the school driving a 4-door compact car, this time a Hyundai, with a cool factor of zilch, except for the 35mpg it got on the trip up from Chattanooga. My old  parking space had half an SUV in it. Near the side door sat a 1957 two-tone Chevy with the hood up. A primer coated 1930-something auto was parked nearby. A group of former teenage males stood around talking and looking under the hood occasionally. That was a clique I had not clicked with years ago and I wasn't there to try and rewrite history. I went in the side door and just almost went right back out. I would have recognised more faces if I had landed on Mars. It took a while to remember where things were, then I found the auditorium.

The auditorium held the stage, and the stage held the memory of the first time I met Thespis and experienced the total rush of reaching an audience, holding an audience, and leaving the audience in stiches. It was all the sweeter because I was not a socially adept nor popular kid. The mastermind behind that 2 minutes of comedy, speech and drama teacher Bill Geheres, was, is and forever will be my hero. And he was there when I entered the room off to the side of the stage.

After saying good-bye to Mr. Gehres, and attempting to maintain some degree of composure, I walked out on the stage, faced the cavernous room full of empty seats and recalled how the school custodian, Mabel, had made a fiery speech during a pep rally and quite nearly brought down the house. Then a group of girls, daughters of some of my classmates, I presumed, came giggling down the side aisle. I was leaving the stage when I heard my name. Turned out that the "daughters" were Andy, Bess and Carolyn, all from my class of '63. Refreshed I went in search of the alumni room.

The alumni room holds the art-deco blue jay that sat on stage during pep rallies, a band uniform, football jersey and various newspapers and yearbooks. It was populated by groups of guys who mostly seemed to be former athletes, the popular crowd. I was pretty much a misfit then and anyway these folks were older than I so I wandered the halls taking a few photos, mostly through the large arched windows that gave our school a look of elegance. And during this little stroll I met several nice gals. It was funny how they all had the same name. "I'm Justa Spouse," they each said. I walked to the parking lot alone with my thoughts.

The sounds of Janis Ian filled my car as the trip back home began, "I learned the truth at 17..." You and me both, girl. I turned up the volume. Loud.

I missed the dinner party that night to stay with my mother, who wasn't doing well at the moment, but that was ok. I don't have the wardrobe to meet the suggested dress style the email announcement had carried. And anyway that was the class one year ahead of me. I'm still waiting for the in-crowd of 1964 to call.