A Reunion To Remember

My husband Murray has been talking about going to his 40^th high school reunion for over a year now. It never really sounded like that much fun to me.

He doesn’t have friends he remembers from his class. He only went to Fox High School for a year and a half, and he hasn’t kept in touch with anyone from there. But he thought it would be fun to go, so last Saturday, to St. Louis we went.

It was hard to remember when was the last trip we’d gone on with just the two of us, so that was fun. We talked about other things we’d done together. Eating pecan waffles at Waffle House when we lived in Arkansas. Our trip to New York City where we went to two off, off-Broadway shows, and we spent most of two days climbing the stairs in and out of the subway.

The reunion was fun. Murray met many people whose names he said he remembered, and a couple people he actually recognized.

“He used to sit behind me in class.”

“I heard he’d become a real estate agent.”

We enjoyed visiting with people, talking about jobs, where people had lived, kids, and grandkids. Whenever people told us about their grandkids Murray would say, “We’re far too young to have grandchildren yet.”

They had a fun way to get people to start mingling. Instead of giving the graduates a nametag, each one was given the nametag of another student, with their high school picture on it. Everyone moved around, talking to people, trying to find their person, asking if anyone knew them or had seen them.

Before Murray found his person and the lady who had his tag found him, we visited with a good number of people.

Probably some of the greatest memories of the trip for me came from the book we listened to in the car for the eleven hundred miles we drove.

My favorite book ever is TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD. Murray knows the story well. He’s watched the play and movie quite a few times. But when I learned recently that he’d never read the book, I begged him to listen to it with me on this trip.

I was reminded once again why this is my favorite book. It’s one of the few things that make me cry.

The book doesn’t just make you cry, though. The most fun I had this weekend was every time Murray, while listening, would laugh and clap his hands. Yes, he was driving at the time.