For the most part, I was startled at how old everyone looks, and I can only assume I looked startlingly old to them as well; though I just think of myself as looking like ‘me’.

There were lots of lumpier faces, balding heads and beer guts on the men. Most women were wider in the hips and had some crows feet on their faces.

Several of the ladies (and I’ll not name names) looked more attractive now than in high school but, AFAIK, none of the men fared as well. I think that’s more a testament to the God-awful clothes and hairstyles women wore in the late eighties than anything else.
In any case, I tried mingling, with middling success. I’d strike up a conversation, which almost always started with, “I’m Joe Whited and you are…?”, moved through the “where do you live?” and “what do you do?” stages, on to the “any children?” side-shot and tapered off with the awkward denouement, “yeah.. well…”

The group was small, but that fits the size of our class, really. (~80 graduates) And when we adjourned to the “rock” room @ ~22:00, Derek Jenza queued up an earsplitting assortment of period tunes the likes of which I’d grown tired of when still a virgin. This would be more tolerable had it not been mind-numbingly loud. I tired of trying to read lips and Heather and I beat a hasty retreat shortly thereafter.

I left regretting not the reunion, as it was inevitable and missing it would have left a nagging doubt in my mind forevermore, but I’m certainly reassured that my dogged resistance to looking back has been the correct path all along.
I thank the organizers, the ringleaders of which seemed to be Jessica Fritz-Echols, Sula and Derek Jenza. The latter seemed far more gregarious than I remembered him being, but it may be that the gloom-tinted glasses I wore in high school prevented me from seeing it. Class acts, all of them.

    Soon after that was a bike ride with my girls (and a tag-along friend of Sam’s) followed by a lunch-time trip to an arcade where an audience of strangers who didn’t know any better applauded my ITG play. Sam then shared a game of DDR with me and played many ticket games. She ultimately chose to bank her tickets in the form of a hand-written IOU rather than cash them in for the junk under the counter. She says the tickets were more valuable than the prizes because she can remember the fun better that way. Huh! She’s growing up faster than the grass in my back yard.

    Lastly, we ate a dinner of steak with my step-dad and now I’m home for the evening
.
    It wasn’t perfect; a paper wasp stung Heather and I seem to have lightly sprained my thumb. But these annoyances merely prove that today wasn’t a dream, and I can honestly say this was the best Father’s day I’ve ever had… though I’ve only had nine of them.

    Hope it was a great one for everyone else out there, and g’night.

    The disappointment of the Jersey-bound family was extreme. They threatened lawsuits, which we laughed off. They attempted an occult summoning, but our many wards and talismans thwarted their so-called wizard.

    Ultimately they settled on paying for Heather’s airfare. Samantha had been looking forward to the trip more than anyone else, as she missed her second-cousins a lot, so I agreed to pay her way, while Riley and myself remained in Michigan in order to defend our house from looters.

    Mere hours after her arrival in the Garden State I received a text message stating that Samantha had fallen out of a bunk-bed, had hurt her arm, and was to be dropped off at a godless NJ emergency room by a party bus on its way to inebriate the entire family.

    X-rays revealed a broken elbow, and while the trip still involved some amount of fun for all involved, it will forever be remembered as the time that New Jersey broke Samantha.

    So its been a week, and while Sam has been fairly sanguine about the ordeal–at least as sanguine as an ADHD addled 8-year old can ever be–she is still suffering from aches and itches in equal measure.

    And since the whole enterprise had such a miserable ending I can’t even parlay the fact that I didn’t get to go into any sort of credit towards gaining some momentary personal freedom this weekend. *sigh*

    Today I learned about the “Gentlemen Only” department at the downtown Hudson’s department store.

    Run a bit like a burlesque parlor, this was a department where all the customers were men, all the workers were women, and live, lingerie clad models paraded in front of patrons. The men would lounge in leather chairs while sipping coffee, reading newspapers, and choosing which model should wear what clothing for their amusement and shopping pleasure.

    Ostensibly this allowed well-to-do men to purchase clothes for their chattel–I mean women–in confidence and with a clear idea of what they would be getting for the money. And, during the late 1960’s, Heather’s grandma Iris was a popular part-time attendant due to her charming English accent and polite demeanor.

    Tonight’s story had two parts:

• Mafia Encounter
  •     A high ranking member of a prominent Detroit mafia family, accompanied by stereotypical ‘heavies,’ directed various models to wear skimpy underthings and expensive fur coats. After making his selections clear to Iris and delivering a veiled threat that there better be “no funny business”, he left for a few hours only to return with several thousand dollars in cash to make good his purchases.
        In parting he said, “I guess we’re all set, then,” and handed her a $20 bill.
• The Philandering Pilot
  •     A Pan-Am pilot lounged away an afternoon directing various models to do his bidding, eventually purchasing two assortments of clothing. The first pile, fairly plain clothes fit for a portly lass, were to be packaged in Hudson’s shopping bags and packages. The second pile, made up of sexy undergarments and an expensive mink coat fit for a slighter build, were to be packaged in unmarked parcels, tightly sealed.
        ”Whatever you do,” said the pilot, “don’t mix those two orders up. It will mean your job if you do.”

    Its like Mad Men come to life, and an amazing example of the man’s world as it once was.
    This was one of my favorite Iris stories to date, although it does not trump the stories of developing the first aerial photographs of Auschwitz while in the RAF photography corps…. I should get a recorder and get a few of these down for posterity.