I don't recognize a single face in my high school yearbook, with the exception of my sister's and my best buddy's. I barely recognize my own high school mug, grinning sheepishly at me from behind machine-heavy braces and a frizzy perm. The pages in the back of the memoir is full of hand-written scribbles from former classmates, who in a frenzy of autographing, abbreviated their catch-phrases in simple three-letter combinations:. A.S.S., Always Stay Sweet, and K.I.T., Keep In Touch. In the mad dash to get on to life after high school, we merely waved goodbye without so much as a glance back.My memory of those four years is hazy at best, not because I am reaching the early stages of senility, but mostly because I have chosen not to remember. High school certainly wasn't a terrible experience, but I looked forward to college and the years that followed that I didn't concern myself with the every day experience of being a teenager. Perhaps that was why my yearbook was also covered in a particular four-letter word: NERD.
Today, it baffles my friends and family, and those who were most familiar with my high-school persona, that I actually look forward to attending my 10-year high school reunion. Am I trying to regain some sense of lost childhood, or do I hope to reverse the geeky reputation I'd attained all those years ago?
Worse yet, I could be furthering that geeky reputation by instead wishing to visit my old teachers and to try to turn in some extra-credit assignments. Better late than never, I suppose.
My true reasons lie halfway between morbid curiosity and the desire for self-torture, as I would imagine what most people would cite when asked why they would subject themselves to an American tradition such as this. Does anyone truly have fun at these social events, or are they preparing for a beauty queen entrance? In the end, it might be fun to hold my former classmates in awe as I strut down the buffet aisle in my old school cafeteria, but I know that a week after the reunion, we will all be hard-pressed to remember each other's names. From the mist we appear, only to disappear into the fog ... until the 25-year reunion, anyway.
E.Lin
11/3/01
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