Last week a postcard arrived informing me of and inviting me to my 20th high school reunion. Having attended no less than four high schools I had to scan the card carefully to figure out which one was reuniting to reminisce about the bad old days.
Turns out it was John Hersey high school in Arlington Heights, Illinois, which I had attended for all of 3 weeks as a freshman and a semester as a senior (in the night school program, along with all the other outcasts who had come back for a diploma after having dropped out).
Ah yes, Hersey high, where hopes are squashed, dreams are crushed and dignity is slammed head first into the toilet bowl, preferably after having been be-fouled by some knuckle-dragging jock. I spent very little time there, thank God, and in fact have never been invited to a reunion before (again, thank God and all the angels in heaven). I wonder what kind of half-insane dingbats get together and decide that since high school was such a horrifying experience we should all meet up when older and fatter to re-live it. Stepford wives of some sort, I imagine.
I'll tell you one little story to explain how perfectly evil the inmates of Hersey high school were.
About five years ago I was having some work done by a photographer friend - Tim Carlson - who is my age and who managed to get through the singular experience of Hersey high school without bouts of chronic truancy, crime, drugs and eventual incarceration in rehab as did yours truly. We were sitting in his office waiting for something or other when I asked him if it was just my imagination or if our high school had been home to an unusually large number of cruel, sociopathic pinheads who saw it as their life's mission to destroy everything decent, honest and true they saw lurking in the souls of their fellow man.
"It's not your imgaination," he answered. "Remember Ted Orvis*?"
Of course I remembered Ted Orvis. Junior high. I was a vicious little bastard. If karma is anything more than a Buddhist myth, every misfortune I've experienced in life can be traced back to my acting like a nasty little prick for one ugly year in the eighth grade. Ted Orvis was not a frequent target - that would have been too cruel. He was thought to be retarded, though in retrospect he was probably mildly autistic. All you'd have to do to freak him out was to say his name in a sort of sarcastic, jeering, sing-song manner - which I usually did only when extremely bored - and he'd crawl under his desk in Science class and start feverishly picking his nose and muttering to himself.
By the ninth grade, I'd grown up enough to decide that picking on people was retarded. Besides which, I wasn't exactly the biggest clown in the circus, and if it weren't for the crowd I ran with I imagine I would've been getting my ass kicked on a daily basis. Knowing that I'd somehow been spared the experience humbled me.
I barely actually attended high school enough to be acquainted with anyone other than the usual suspects; I certainly don't recall ever seeing Ted Orvis again. But apparently the other deviants never eased up on him. They tortured him for what must have been four long, agonizing, hellish years.
Ten years later it's high school reunion time. Tim, for reasons only he can explain, decides to go. And Ted Orvis shows up. Like many autistics he is more or less a genius - a fact that was likely ignored at Hersey by his tormenters - students and faculty alike. Now he's making a ton of money and he's got a terrific, great-looking wife. And here's the incredible thing - he's not holding a grudge. He's not holding it over anybody's head that they tortured him mercilessly and now he's raking in the dough while they're doubtless stuck in the soul-crushing, dead-end jobs they so richly deserve. He's polite to the people who made his life a living hell. He forgives them.
And what do they do?
They sarcastically crown him king of the reunion, that's what they do, in pure Carrie fashion.
Those are the people I went to high school with.
And they wondered why I never bothered to show up.
*Name changed for obvious reasons.
Using 'retarded' twice in back-to-back paragraphs is just not PC. Didn't they teach you that in high school? :)
..When you're a loaded autistic married to a psuedo-supermodel, you can afford to forgive. Hell, it probably makes *Ted* feel a billion times better in some weird way that he can come back and feel 'popular' and bestow some 'forgiveness' - that's the shit he's been secretly pining for, 8 or 9 minutes every night before he goes to bed. Maybe. Besides, there ain't no place higher than the moral high ground. *Ted* seems like he wouldn't exactly be the type for confrontation anyhow...
The overriding message here? Never go to high school in Chicago.
Posted by: Nadz at August 17, 2006 10:11 AMMan my 5 year high school anniversary is coming up, and one things for god damn sure....whether it is 5,10,20,or 50, there is no way in hell that they can drag me back to converse with the stuck up fucktards that made up my high school class.
Posted by: Patrick at August 17, 2006 12:01 PMOne of the crowning achievments in my life thus far was dropping out of high school in 10th grade and re-enrolling in alternative schooling a year later. If Westchester Academy ever sends me anything addressed to "Alumnus," it will take two memorable trips; one sluicing through my cravasse, and the other down Mr. Toilet.
Posted by: Dave at August 17, 2006 02:26 PMMy high school experience was relatively un-hellish (well, after the house of horrors that was 9th grade and a subsequent switch of schools). I had a few friends, survived relatively unscathed.
I didn't go to the 10-year reunion, but for some unknown reason I decided to go to the 20. About 30 seconds after I walked in the door, I knew it was a tragic mistake. Of the dozen or so people I would have known to say hi to, not a single one was there. I didn't even see anyone I remembered passing in the halls. I got a beer, talked briefly to a couple of complete strangers and got the hell out of there.
Ah, sweet memories.
Posted by: miker at August 17, 2006 06:47 PMI'm up for a ten year invite before long, if I'm traceable at that point in time... bridging the myspace conflict into this topic, I had a myspace page for my bike delivered cassette record label and in less than a year had been reunited with more than a handful of 'classmates' I had chosen to forget about successfully up until our electronic union of late. I don’t bend for your average Joe, Jane or flashback from hell. I guess they can find me if it is thier moment's desire. Taking my wife’s advice dating back to my myspace debut, I got the hell off for good and decided to plunk all my coins worth into my actual webpage, whatever the loss at stake (like integrity). Can anyone guess which box I’ll check as the invitations roll in over the next decades?
Posted by: Gordon at August 17, 2006 07:50 PMYeah... Good old North High. I just passed my 10 yr. reunion. I'm sure it's good for those that feel they have something to prove, as well as those who can't let the glory years go... As for me, the only bastards I ever cared about in my teenagedom are still frequented as often as possible, and it doesn't cost 300 clams for the socializing. I doubt I'll be in attendance at the next blockbusting event either... It's against my common sense.
Posted by: Heath Dobbler at August 17, 2006 11:22 PMto a lesser extent, i WAS ted orvis. I was the ONLY dark-complected kid at the very white Richmond-Burton High School (below Lake Geneva, WI). for about ten minutes, i tried 'fitting in' and even went to many of the country farm road drink fests where the guys would shoot off rifles while old style beer flowed and the motley crue and hank williams, jr cassettes blared from competing chevy pick-up trucks.
i have zero desire to attend any sort of reunion.
anyway, after that, i started sneaking off to the fireside bowl and such for shows.
typical monday morning:
"what you do this weekend?"...
"got fucked up"...
"what did you do?"...
"saw jawbreaker in chicago"
Jesus Christ, high school in Palm Bay, Florida was a collection of wannabe gangsters and punk rockers, with your occasional goth kids and ravers. It was the Rancid years, the Green Day Years, ah, the Offspring years. High school in the mid-late 90s released a brand of punk rock jock never before seen by the world. When kids on the FOOTBALL team had mohawks, you knew something wasn't right. I got by with being a smartass and eventually befriending a few of the kids who decided to pick on me when I first transfered to the school from Mass. I did eventually drop out in the 10th grade and went to the local community college where I got my GED, a vocational certificate, and two-year degree. I also found time to see hundreds of shows and go on road trips, so it wasn't a bad move at all.
Dropping out of that school was the best thing I ever did. Kids would smoke pot in the back of our HEALTH class. No kidding. The teacher was a 68 year old woman who would take smoke breaks in the hall. A nice old substitute, a Navy veteran with a naked lady tattoo, was even pushed down a concrete flight of stairs by some kids and broke his arm. I don't know how any of those kids from that school wound up, and I don't care to. I'll pass on my ten year in '08.
Posted by: cusack at August 18, 2006 09:58 AMI know where Hersey high school is; that said it brings back certain memories of me at Palatine high school that I still try to forget.
Although I will say junior high was a whole lot worse for me. I wish I could just block those memories out completely. You can just imagine how easy of prey a kid that wears MST3K t-shirts would be to everyone else.
Posted by: Cola at August 19, 2006 11:37 AMIt's been almost 15 years since and I don't miss that experience. I was in the band and theater, talk about getting tortured. There is no way I want to go back to Hersey to relive that nightmare. I have better things to do with my time. Why live in the past?
Posted by: Rich Bryant at August 19, 2006 12:42 PMBeen poking around here again.
To think...there was a time when I would have gladly traded Hersey for the amazingly crappy experience of AHS. I've made my peace with a lot of what happened, but it still doesn't change the fact I wouldn't want to be in a room with all those people at once again.