Why I Want to Attend My High School Reunion

Fairburn, Georgia circa 1950's

I recently received an invitation to my high school reunion. My high school was Campbell High, in Fairburn, Georgia. The football team was the Bears, the school colors were blue and white, the mascot was some tall, gangly, red-headed girl parading around in a moth-eaten bear suit, and the theme song was “Hail to Thee, O’ Campbell High School.”Believe it or not, but I still recall most, if not all, of the lyrics from that song; but, no, I do not intend to sing it to you.

Anyway, the funny thing is that I didn’t actually graduate from Campbell, or any high school for that matter, because I dropped out at 16 to get married, which is what girls did back then (got married) if they found themselves in the “family way,” which is what happened to me, though that’s another story for another blog. My point is that even though I failed to graduate (I did earn a GED later), I have been invited to this class reunion. Why? Well, I asked myself the same question, and I think it's simply because the reunion committee is desperate for warm bodies, given the alumni are getting rather long in the tooth and beginning to drop like flies.

The reason for my being invited notwithstanding, however, I would like to attend the reunion because I’m curious about how my classmates turned out (Yes, I know one should avoid ending a sentence with a preposition). I mean, what’re they like now? Are they successful? Where do they live? Are they retired? Are they bald (at least the guys)? Are they happily married? Divorced? Widowed? Do they have grandkids? More important, have the cheerleaders gotten fat and lost their looks?

Yes, I am curious about that. Wouldn't you be? I mean, hey, the cheerleaders were always the most popular girls in school because, well, all the boys wanted to date a cheerleader. Heck if I know why. I guess there was just something about having a pompom-twirling kewpie doll snuggling beside you on the plastic covers of the front seat in your souped-up GTO that appealed to the opposite sex and made him feel all macho like James Dean in Rebel without a Cause.

And no, I was never a cheerleader. (Isn’t that obvious?) Granted, any girl could try out for the cheerleading squad, but everyone knew you didn’t stand a chance unless your family belonged to Fairburn’s “elite,” which included the families of the town’s mayor, dentist, doctor, bank president, pharmacist, and State Farm agent, etc. (Yes, there was only one of each, but Fairburn was a small town back then), as well the owners of the shops along Main Street, aka Roosevelt Highway.

Then again, poor or not, one year I decided to try out for the squad. So did my best friend Ruth, whose family was also poor. Ruth and I spent hours after school and on the weekends practicing cartwheels and splits, as well as memorizing six zillion cheers. Not that our hard work came to anything, but for a brief, short, shining moment in time, Ruth and I dared to dream.

Come to think of it, our experience was like that song: “I learned the truth at 17—that love belongs to beauty queens.” The truth we learned, however, at 13 was that we had busted our skinny behinds in the sweltering Georgia heat doing cartwheels and handstands and splits and all for naught, because money talked, and if your family had enough of it, you got to be a cheerleader. Otherwise, forget it.

Okay, so there, I admit it. The main reason I’d like to attend this reunion of the class with which I did not graduate is to see how the cheerleaders turned out. And, yes, as catty as it sounds, I hope they all now weigh 400 pounds and have long, stiff hairs jutting out of their triple chins. I also hope their husbands ran away with bleached-blonde waitresses from the Waffle House out near the Interstate because those waitresses were bouncy and giggly and reminded them of cheerleaders. 

And on that note, I will cease my diatribe for tonight. Time for the vino.