Reunion...naw!

40 years.

Where did the time go? It’s hard to believe that back in June of ’76 I donned a red cap and gown, stood with my pals under the dome of the Anaheim Convention Center and, one by one, just like all the rest, walked up and was awarded my high school diploma.

I have never been to a high school reunion, mine or anyone else’s. I suppose I feel lucky simply just to have graduated. From a Catholic school, a college prep one, no less. I knew that going there was a big deal. It should have prepared me for huge things, but the importance of all hugeness that was left behind in the larger picture I had painted for myself at the beginning of my senior year: I was headed off to join the navy the following fall and somehow the lure of sailing the seven seas seemed like a much bigger and far more powerful thing that cracking the books. No wonder I ended up the middle of my class. Academically I was not the most highly polished apple. My extra-curricular work didn’t shine much, either. I didn’t join glee club or take part in a drama. I didn’t debate or play football (but I did run track). I didn’t write for the newspaper, instead, I wrote tons of poetry. I didn’t take on tons of cool and interesting things to pad college application with. But what I did do was work.

Work allowed for car insurance, the only way that I was going to be able to have a car. Having a car in my senior year allowed for a wild amount of freedom, a true genie out of a lamp thing, something that I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around when I was just a Schwinn-riding , Vans-sporting, callow youth. Work gave me license to keep late hours, something that was necessary when working at a drive-in theater. The drive-in gave me access to unlimited popcorn, extra-cheese and pepperoni on my pizzas and passes to see films at any Pacific Theater across the whole of Orange County. But having a car took that high flying attitude and put it into hyper-space. Not only was the popcorn and pizza a bonus, but I also had access to the teenage passion pit of every Catholic school boy’s wildest dreams.

Work was my jones and my means to an end from my sophomore year on. Work bought me threads and a set of wheels, but it also gave me an identity. Somehow I think the idea of going off to the service might not even have shown up in my rearview if I had just been playing ball or working on being the class thespian. Instead, I got out of the house, worked but more, started having adventures. 

Somehow I knew that the ability to bypass ticket booths was just a start. Work would lead to even bigger and better things. I made friends and had acquaintances that I would have never otherwise met. Believe it, working in a snack bar doesn’t require having a higher degree mentioned in your application. From 16 on my world colored in deep shades of interesting well before I ever hit the fleet. Through work I felt that I had finally found my tribe. That tribe took me down a road that lead to beer, cannabis and sex and for that I was forever thankful. Working with marginalized, interesting, varyingly educated, happy, weird and edgy people in a fast, gritty, late night, arty world gave me admission into a tribe that I’d never otherwise find in my uptight, constricted, puritanical Catholic school boy world. Or so I thought.

Enter weed. Cannabis gave me an “in” ticket to another, even bigger, overlapping tribe that I wasn’t even remotely aware of. Early in my senior year I breached access into this world. I certainly didn’t hurt that a member of my clique turned out to be an ace marijuana dealer. All my pals at the time had some edgy side to them, it seemed, and cannabis was just the gateway tool to bring it all out. We were all weird: brainy, geeks, outcasts. We sat at the edge of the lunch area and talked endlessly about girls, about film, about cars, about getting away from it all. We all found ways to get into trouble, but trouble of the mild, geeky kind. None of us were losers, per se, but we were seen to be that from all those who lived in the hills, in the rich and not so famous closed gated enclaves of the county. 

As the year wore on and we all got closer to graduation we began to see who else spoke the secret language of mota. With weed my tribe grew. We brought in motorheads, desert motorcycle riders, surfers and lowriders. I look back now on who my pals were then and think, yeah, at the time we were all outsiders and now all those things we loved to do…surfing, custom cars, choppers, tattoos, graffiti, PBR and an appreciation for good grass…are now all mainstream. We were far ahead of the curve back then and we didn’t even know it. And yeah, we all managed to graduate, some even with top honors. Some went on to join the service, a bunch went on to college. From what I can tell we all did well. I’ve run into government wonks, County workers, designers, travel agents, truck drivers and mechanics. Family men, happy, settled. Who knows about the mota.

I got my invitation to attend the reunion back in the spring. A cousin on my father’s side was one of the reunion organizers. I told her yes at the time but as the year passed I thought harder about attending. A look at the roster of folks who said they were coming clinched it for me. Of all the names that were posted not one of my old group was planning on attending. What would be the point, after 40 plus years, of seeing and talking to folks who were now truly outsiders to me? Sure, I could go and trip down memory lane but my times, my most important times, were shared with people long gone who pushed brooms, threw cheese and collected tickets at that drive-in. My times, good, bad and indifferent, were all colored by those other marginalized folks who rode surfboards, turned wrenches, polished their rides and took their ruckas to the beach on sunny days. With not a name to relate to I felt no big reason to make the 24-hour drive from the mountains to the coast.

Someday I am sure that I will make that drive back there. I’ll do it right, with my mujuer by my side, the kid in the back seat. I am sure we’ll do Disneyland, take in a swap meet, see family, grab some In-N-Out, dive into the sea. The Harbor Blvd. Drive-In is long gone, so taking in a flick there is out of the question. But maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ll be able to run into an old high school pal or two. My best old friend from those days still lives there. He’s a happy family man. Well adjusted, retired. And a big mota head, too. Somehow we are all still part of that tribe, still speaking the same language. Neither of us attended the reunion. None of them. 40 years and running.

Salud!