CHS 20th Reunion, Part 2


So there are enough pictures to fill a small wagon, and I've posted more of them up at flickr.com. Check it out.

We flew in Thursday to FWB, and the airport is all changed up. Much less the dismal, low-ceilinged, ancient cement bomb shelter it used to be. Now there are tall ceilings and lots of light, and a fanatical devotion of TSA to finding the tiniest piece of metal on your person. Jenny picked us up, and it was so cool to see her again. It's not been more than 10 years since I saw her last, but to see your "little" friend all "grown up" is quite a kick. Chilled out in her lovely back yard for many hours, drinking Bud Light and I think we switched to vodka at some point, and us girls stayed up and talked forever.

Ugh, hangover. But, no rest for the wicked! Dad had indeed made it from the Keys to Destin, and requested that we meet him somewhere for breakfast. Whee, that'll be fun, I have no idea what's where, let alone in Destin. But, we went out to his hotel behind the McDonald's, and visited with him and Lee, his "not-girlfriend" I like to call her, and attempted a stab at breakfast at a local haunt. NO dice, people oozing out the door. Jenny was a brilliant concierge--dialed information on her cell for the Broken Egg Cafe down the way, found out the wait time, and when we heard it was about 10-15 minutes, we were on our way. Finally had a nice breakfast, when the waitress was no longer hounded by the 10 or 12-top that was sitting behind us. Visited with Dad and Lee some more afterwards till about noon, showing pictures and shooting the breeze. We took Jenny back to Shalimar and later headed all the way back out to Destin for a meeting with my AG Edwards boys.

Come to find out, AG Edwards will no longer named such, as of about 24 hours before--Wachovia has bought them out! Whatever, I'd hoped to stay far from that name after the trust was disbursed. But I digress. A nice meeting with them, and at Early Bird Special Time (and it was a good thing), we went to dinner with the AG Edwards boys and the eldest's wife and Dad and Lee. Harbor Docks has a nice view of Destin Sound, I think it is, and pretty great seafood. Strange musical chairs to make sure the guests got that view, and who got the amberjack grilled!? The restaurant had seriously filled up by the time we left, and valet parking had nearly parked us in, in my dad's giant Avalanche truck. So I decided to be a spotter and help Dad back out of the parking lot. I was much successful, even moving cones that they'd set up to get people into the parking lot. I wish I had a photo of that!

Dad got delightfully mushy after dinner, and I really felt how much he loved me. I got all weepy myself on the drive home, how could I not see the way he and my mom felt about me when I was growing up? Like it never seemed explicit, or maybe I was just thick-skulled. I was sorry that he'd travelled all that way just to see me, for such a short period of time, but I was also really happy to see him.

Later that night, we decided to play "tourist" and go to an institution of a night club, Sammy's. We had a blast. All the ladies seemed to be so genuinely interested in whether we were having a good time, smiling, saying thank you, giving driving advice (you DO NOT drive drunk in FWB anymore apparently)! I had really expected the place to be pretty seedy and tragic, but it was really a place I'd go back to and recommend to others. If for nothing else, go to see what some of those girls can do on a pole--you can hang upside down on that thing?

Saturday was met with another hangover, big surprise. But, off to the beach party we went at about 10:30. Saw people I haven't seen in a long time--Carey, Diane, Lee, Rhonda, Carmen. I was really hip to see Wright. Robert said he was bringing his "brood" and I was like, whut? Long story short, Wright and I "dated" in junior high for about 2 weeks (he says 3), I broke up with him and he never forgave me all through the rest of school. Well, maybe 3-5 years ago, I sent him a sort of random email through the CHS yahoo site. Told him I'd been a jerk to him in school and he said he'd been the same to me. Life is too short to lose contact with good people over something that happened SO long ago, so we've really come full circle and I'm thrilled. Besides, he and my husband are definitely cut from the same cloth, twins separated at birth, and it turns out they really like each other. Anyway, so Wright did make it to the beach with his lovely girlfriend and her kids. I really must get a recording of her Japanese! Hysterical. We all had a nice time on the beach, didn't get too much sun, and nobody laughed in my face about the bikini I wore. Brilliant.

Lunch on the beach at the Crab Trap, 50 dollars later, and we went home to Jenny's. Laid in the pool a while and tried a Bellini. Not bad. Showered up and got ready for the banquet thingy at the Ramada. We were ungodly early, among the first 10 people to arrive. But Brian was in rare form, I never remembered him being so hysterically funny. It was amazing throughout the night to see people, faces you knew in high school, and to see how they'd either changed drastically--to make them almost unrecognizeable--or hardly at all, just a few years and general age and gravity. I found if I focused on the eyes, I had a pretty good chance of figuring out who was who. But, the truth was that in high school I had a fairly small circle of friends, who fortunately gravitated to me that Saturday night, and all the rest I knew faces and some names but never knew them all that well in school anyway. Good to see them all the same. The hard part was having the spouses in the mix! Who's he, who's she? And no nametags on most of us, I sure didn't wear one, so I can hardly complain. There was 80's music played and seriously danced to, including "Rock the Casbah" and "You Spin Me Round" (the latter I squealed at some supersonic frequency, claiming I was trained to do that as a child and never recovered).

Okay, I'm blathering, I'll try to wrap this up soon, I promise. I was sad after the banquet/dance, because I had been expecting so much, anticipated so much, imagined how it would all be. I worried that I was somehow reliving the "glory days" that had never actually existed in the first place. My husband was charming and told me how people's eyes lit up to see me. I hope he was right, I was sure glad to see the people I saw. I had a great time, but between expectations and reality, I felt a little let down.

Sunday was a fine day of sloth, more pool-sitting and beer drinking, oh, and Wii playing! Thank God for Jenny and her video games, what a kick that Wii is. I learned how to race cows and perform surgery! Heee. Bobby came by, another old flame, and he hung out for a while with us. Another 2-week dating record there, again in junior high. Except he broke up with me and I was crushed. He and I made amends much sooner though, and he's been a good friend for years although I'm not in touch with him very often. Great to see him. Wright also came by for photos and pool-sitting, a real nice time.

Jenny and I stayed up until the wee hours again, drinking and talking. She dropped us at the airport on Monday morning, where we experienced the search for microscopic metal, both on my person and in my backpack. Now I'm back home, thinking I'm back to normal. More or less. I miss my friend and sometimes I actually miss Florida. It's clear and cool outside here, and for that part I miss the Florida heat and the ability to sit by a pool and just hang, as if I were 12 again. I guess those glory days did exist. But I think when you try to "relive" them, you just get new glory days, not really exactly the old ones. I think it's worth trying, all the same.

I am so grateful for the reconnections I made this past weekend, and for the giant hospitality that was extended to us by my oldest and dearest friend.

Hope you'll all enjoy the photos on flickr, and thanks for reading this enormous post.

Comments

Unknown said…
Cat,
I loved your recap of the weekend. Made me really, really bummed that I couldn't be there though. Thanks for sharing your pics and blog. You looked like you had an absolute BLAST.

BTW, you looked hot in that bikini!!

LaTrecia
Cat Pippitt said…
LaTrecia,
Sorry to hear you couldn't make it, it was a great time. I'm sure we'll see you at the next get-together. And I could kiss your feet for your comment about my bikini, thank you! :)

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