20th High School Reunion Part 1 - The Endless Summer Night that was about One hundred degrees

This previous summer, our high school had it's 20th reunion. Reunions are the stuff of legends - movies are full of poignant moments of tender hugs, late night rendevous with old lovers, previous homecoming queens getting high in the bathrooms, science club nerds who fly in on their private jets after making it big in Silicone Valley. But that's all fiction. Based perhaps on same tiny sliver of real life of some screenwriter but still - fiction. Here's how the first night of our reunion went (names have been changed to protect the guilty and it's all well meaning so chillax and enjoy).

My husband and I get all gussied up for this event at the Buccaneer Lounge - yes "The Buc" as its called in Panama City Florida. It's an older place recently fixed up a little that sits on our beautiful St. Andrews Bay facing Shell Island and the tip of Panama City Beach. When I was growing up, "The Buc" was one of those mysterious taverns that your parents or someone else's might go to for dancing while you were left with some young babysitter who sat on your parent's phone the whole night, eating Domino's pizza while you got to sneak in some PG-13 HBO watching (if HBO was having one of those free weekends). Anyway, by the time I was old enough to go to the Buc, after graduating college, visiting home and local friends, it retained a certain "air" of smoke, smoke and alcohol. But you could enjoy the odor while watching the sun go down on the water, always a bonus. 

Pulling into the parking lot was a little butterfly inducing, I'll be honest. I was way more excited about this reunion than our 10th (which was fun but there just wasn't any distance between most of us by then). I had been on the committee again for our 20th and knew who to expect and was very excited about seeing friends that had shared certain classes or clubs with me, and of course many many memories. This was the one for the books, because after this we're going to start getting cancers, get eye problems, hip replacements, dementia, liver disease and other nasty things that take away our youth and fun. So, with this my always darker side on my shoulder, I walked into The Buc like some orphan duck looking for signs of my past that seemed, by now, very very far in the past. 

Side note : My husband of over ten years was a good soldier, displaying the grace, politeness and of course having fun while I talked for about two days straight to people I mostly hadn't seen in over 20 years. Some of the friends he has known anyway for a very long time, and others he just hit it off with and was able to find common ground with this strange group of panhandle Floridians, which indeed is a unique crowd, in all the best meaning. 

Back to the night. Let me just say this because it is important - it was a record breaking hot weekend. I mean that night barely got below 90 degrees at night(not kidding look it up). So, everyone was trying to maintain some kind of cool in an indoor/outdoor bar lounge tiki hut kind of place while sweating. Everyone I hugged was sweating, so I just pretended we were all back at Salty's (our old fave place on the beach) dancing and sweating to Grease Lightning and it was ok. Lots of sweat exchanged, perfume, alcohol, cologne, and sweat.  By the end of that night, my hair looked like a yellow q-tip from the humidity but that was ok, I was having a blast. 

SIGH. 

This is going to take several posts I realize, and I have an appointment in one hour to get ready for (dishes, wash kids, do nails before going). So, I will return for the next post. Tentatively titled: "The Endless Summer Night - Happy People and Bathroom Wuh-ohs". 

No gun talk for now, except I just did.