I woke up unable to concentrate. You know, it was one of those mornings when you’re so distracted while showering that you can’t remember if you washed everything, so you have to start all over. I wasn’t so much nervous as I was uncertain. Our reunions are open to all alumni, so it was possible I’d be awash in strange faces who might assume I was with the help. Despite my concerns, I rewashed and and shook the last few drops from the bottle of my favorite cologne.

I arrived at my old school and was immediately awash in not only strange faces, but young faces. I wasn’t mistaken for the help, but a few people did think I was a high school parent. I am NOT that old! The first familiar face was Denny, the maintenance guy. What’s sad is that Denny’s name did not immediately come to me. On the other hand, “Dynero!” rolled right off of his tongue, while I repeated in my head, “Danny? Denny? Danny. No, Donny… Denny?”. I settled on, “Hey you!” I encountered a few faculty members before I saw my first classmate. I knew her name before the soccer ball from a nearby game hit me in the head. The last thing I remembered was someone saying, “I guess he never played soccer.” I played for four years, Jerk.

When I came to, I was in the middle of a tour of the school’s facilities. There were lots of additions and renovations over the past 20 years. As I looked at the amazing improvements, all I could thinks was, “Where was all this sh*t when I was in school?” By now, a lot more classmates had arrived. I guess I should mention that I graduated with 27 people, so by “a lot,” I mean 6. We had enough for a decent group photo, so we huddled together and passed 8 cameras to someone’s spouse. We finished up right as Bell’s Palsy set in my face. I’m pretty sure I looked like Joan Rivers in those last few shots. Next, the gang decided that we’d meet up at a winery, followed an ice cream parlor, a nature walk, a Sock Hop and concluding with dinner. I opted to just show for dinner.

Dinner was at the Greene. For those unfamiliar with the Greene, it’s a large outdoor shopping center designed to help people forget they live in Dayton. When it was first built, it looked a lot like a facade for a movie studio set, like something right out of “Pleasantville.” I never visit the Greene (mostly due to conditions of my parole), so I got kind of lost walking around. After passing a jewelry store twice, the manager motioned for security. I finally found my destination and hooked up with what I thought was my group. 10 minutes later, I realized that none of their stories were familiar (it was dark!). Someone from the other side of the bar yelled my name, and I rejoined my classmates.

We smiled and laughed and very soon started playing the name game. “Do you remember” went on for about half an hour when I decided to mix it up. I started naming people from different schools to make everyone doubt their memories. “Come on! You remember Junebug Jones!” Remember, we only had 27 people in our class, so this one guy who was good in math became suspicious when I brought up classmate number 50. I overplayed my hand when I moved on to sitcom characters. The jig was up with Theo Huxtable.

My near 40 years began to show as the night drew long. I grew hoarse from TALKING OVER THE NOISE, and the cougars I saw grinding on each other went from entertaining to sad. I propped my eyelids open with toothpicks and said my goodbye’s. I had parked as far away as I could from the bar (through ignorance, not intent), so I bummed a ride back to my car. Good thing too, because it started raining. If you think a black man walking aimlessly around an upscale shopping center in the day time is suspicious, imagine what it looks like when it’s nighttime and raining. I didn’t quite know where I was parked, so it was like that episode of Seinfeld in the parking garage.

As I drove home, Miley Cyrus’ “Time of Our Lives” came on the radio. I shamelessly cranked it up and smiled as I thought back on the day spent with my aging classmates. Sure we all remembered being closer friends than we really were, talked of more fun than we really had, and flaunted more youth than any of us possessed, but that’s what reunions are all about. Painting over the bad, highlighting the good, and taking a trip back to a simpler time, a time of unwritten futures and unlimited possibilities. Maybe we didn’t recall every detail of the past, or say every name correctly, but we’ll never forget that night. That night when we were young again.

Let’s not wait another 20 years. I guarantee we’ll all look like crap by then.