Reproduction: A Story of Before and After

Once upon a time, there was Mark. Mark was active in many different ways at Slidell High, so you saw him everywhere: winning on the tennis court, riding in the Homecoming parade, cheering in the stands at a basketball game.

Then came Mark’s wife. Of course, she was not his wife when they first met, but she chose to become his wife after she got to know him. If Mark were at all responsible about checking in with his high school reunion planners, as active as he was in high school, I would know the name of his wife. I would write that name here instead of referring to her only in terms of Mark.

After a time, as can happen with couples, Mark’s family expanded, even doubled in number. Looking at this sweet portrait, admiring the smiles, how can Mark not feel happiness and pride when he reflects on his life? But more importantly, how can he not email me the names of his children too?

Some of you have doubled, even tripled, your family sizes. If there were a Class Mark Event that rewarded proliferation, surely we’d have already beaten those pests in the class of 87. Let’s prove it by posting more photographs here. And Mark Shaw, for the love of all things green and white, send me an email and tell me that you and all three people whose names I don’t yet know will attend the reunion on June 10, 2006.

She Gets Around

Raquel Lynn Noland Cail lives in southern California now but reports she's been "all over" since joining the Army after graduation. Her beautiful daughter, who I think is named Brittany, will be 18 this year. What? How is that possible? How can Raquel have a 17-year-old daughter when it was just a minute ago that we were all buying Busch and Bartles & James at the gas station where we knew we could get away with it?

(Raquel, if I got her name wrong, let me know and I'll edit this post.)

If you would like to send an email to Raquel and share photos of your own beautiful family, drop me a line. She'd be happy for me to pass out her address, but I don't want to send a lot of spam her way by posting it here. Raquel might or might not be able to attend the reunion events during the weekend of June 10, but we're going to keep our fingers crossed that she can.

Thanks to everyone who's written me emails with your contact information. And if you haven't written me yet, what's your damage? Come on; it will be very.

Meetin' in the Ladies' Room

So it’s harder to find the women. Many of you have chosen to take your husbands’ names, as did I, at least temporarily. (Who knows how long it’ll last? I mean, he’s a good guy and all….) When I plug in your names at Switchboard.com, I don’t know these phone numbers I’m getting. Am I supposed to just start dialing one night as if I’ve had too many wine coolers?

Please send me your address if only to save me from embarrassment. Even if you think that someone from SHS knows how to reach you, just drop me a line. You wouldn’t believe the anxiety dreams I’m having about this stuff.

Sonja Watkins, didn’t you and I co-narrate a children’s play? I vaguely remember the two of us wearing white and green long-sleeve t-shirts and sitting on stools with a giant fake book. We told a Cajun version of the Three Little Pigs, and Georgina was there, and Kenneth from the class of 85, and a lot of little kids.

Debbie Lybanon illustrated early how a woman could do it all, have it all. She was in NJROTC and choir; she had a stellar GPA, ranking no. 5 in our class. She had a boyfriend, too. For all I know, she went home and whipped out perfect cable-knit sweaters after kicking her trigonometry homework across the room for boring her. Why is it I can’t find Debbie today? Has she mastered yet another talent by disappearing from the planet?

Lacy Wright, I borrowed your name once. At a football game, two guys asked my name and I gave “Lacy” because it’s so pretty and, for one moment, I wanted a name that cool. Of course, it was no time at all before they learned my real name, which showed how really uncool I was, thereby deserving a much plainer label, such as goofball. If Lacy had learned about my attempt at name theft, would she have beat me with her flag after performing with the Tiger Stripes on the field?

See that senior portrait up there? I think Mechelle Clifton was in my physics class, the one tortured by Mr Trygg. It's that I remember having some class with her, and I remember her sitting in the good row over by the windows while I was in the crappy row by the door. My guess is physics because there are lab tables in that memory. About the only other thing I didn’t block out is Joe getting us in trouble when he would sing, loudly and tunelessly, “The stars at night are big and bright….” If you were there, you know what happened next.

Mechelle, where are you, girl?


(The 20th-year reunion is Saturday, June 10, 2006. Do we know how to reach you? No, really?)

Roll Call

Where is Lynnwood Bosch? I keep hearing that he was the man behind the 10th-year reunion, and props are due. No one mentions that party without saying his name. I could’ve sworn I once saw a profile for him on Classmates.com, but it’s gone now, and I’m not sure I’m remembering correctly that he wrote he was moving to the Gulf coast last July, maybe to Alabama.

Bring me the head of Danielle Wilson! We had algebra together, two transplants from other schools in a class of people a year older. I have no idea where she’s flown, and no one else has given me the goss.

Karl Huhner, put down that book right now and send me an email. You were the first president of the Beta club, so don’t you feel obligated to get in touch? Your Betas need you at the reunion.

Why hasn’t Ronnie Denham signed up on the Alumni site? He might think we know how to reach him, but I don’t have an address, a phone number, or nothin’. He essentially stalked everyone at SHS when putting together the first video yearbook. Why hasn’t he shown us the love recently?

Hazel Elzie, speak up! Were your ears burning when we brought up your name at the coffee shop two weeks ago? We don’t even know whom to ask your whereabouts, so my fingers are crossed that you’re going to look us up.

The senior portrait here is Steve Parsons, who has successfully fallen off the radar, as least as far as my junior-detective skills are concerned. If he doesn't send in his contact information, all those stories about his improprieties while in office for the Student Council just might surface. You know how presidents can be.

That’s right, people: I’m kicking blog and taking names.

Southern Gentleman, Gentlewomen

Jimmy Hennessey goes by “Jim” now but told me via email I could slip up and call him Jimmy because his mom still does. Last Saturday, he drove to Slidell from his home in Hattiesburg to attend the First Official Meeting of the Order of Planners Extraordinaire for the Twentieth-Year Reunion. He held open the door when we walked outside to photograph ourselves, he held open the door to the coffee shop we found open after the meeting, and he waited to be last in line to order a beverage.

Now I’m not saying that I want men to offer me such privileges simply because I’m a delicate womanly flower, but it felt special. I’d forgotten. I’m not saying men and women both haven’t been holding doors open in other parts of the world, either, such as Chicago, but still. It felt special in Slidell last weekend.

Feminists might be bristling at my use of the label “girl” in my photo descriptions. So I’m going to tell you a little stylebook story. (Climb onto my lap, virtually speaking.) As a copy editor for many years, I notice writers’ choices of terms in such circumstances. Part of my job is to determine whether the terms suggest a certain tone or bias and whether they do indeed apply. Where I currently work, I’m supposed to use “girl” when the subject or patient is female and younger than 18 years old. If she’s older than 12 years, I can use adolescent or female adolescent.

I had to decide what rule to apply to my blog posts--set my own publishing conventions, if you will. My goal when writing the posts, as it is when editing articles, is consistency. When you use terms consistently, people don’t usually get hung up on noticing them and they can focus on only the message itself. The motor of the truck doesn’t distract from the importance of its cargo, so to speak.

When posting pictures taken in 1985 and 1986, I just can't refer to my teenage friends as “women,” no matter how much time has passed since that camera shutter opened. But when I saw Susan Whelan, the blonder subject of last week’s photo, walk into our meeting room last Saturday, I thought, “Wow, what a woman. I wish I knew where she got those shoes.”


(The 20th-year reunion is Saturday, June 10, 2006. Do we know how to reach you?)

Grab Your Calendar by the Toe

That's right: Saturday, June 10. Write it down. Draw hearts and flowers around it. Flip the page back to May and write it down there, too, and while you're at it, write it down in every month between now and then so you will enjoy the sweet anticipation of a countdown to reunion bliss.

We'll be yukking it up at the Gallery, which I think has an address on Taos Rd in Slidell, and of course I'll get that to you when I can. Does it help if I tell you that it's behind Taco Bell and we can park in the Harley Davidson lot after 6 p.m? Should I mention that it's spitting distance from I-10 and stumbling distance to a motel?

I'll have so much more to say soon. But in the meantime, do I know how to reach you? Do I have your email address and your mailing address and your phone number? People have been asking about you. Can I tell them you're coming?

Grumpy End to 2005

I don’t mean to take it out on you, but I’ve been in no mood to write blog posts. I started one about our parents but was afraid it was too personal; I almost finished one about how dissatisfying the holidays are but it made me even grumpier. Now December and 2005 are history, and I still have nothing to say to you.

Well, I do have the one thing to say to you, a repeat invitation: can you meet me next weekend? I’m arriving in Slidell on Friday, and I want to talk about reunion stuff. Can you drop me an email to say you can come to a meeting?

Saturday, January 7, 2 p.m.
First Presbyterian Church in Slidell on 9th Street by the guys’ baseball field

Would you like to get together on Friday night? Michelle Thomas-Bush, who is also flying in for the weekend, suggested that we ask someone to have us over to his or her house for a casual discussion--but I just couldn’t bring myself to ask anyone; call me shy (?) or reticent or embarrassed. If you would like to gather on Friday night, if only for some beer and nachos and gossip, please also drop me an email.

Perhaps I should round out this post with some New Year’s resolutions. I don’t think these list items fit the bill, but here’s what I want to do next:

1. Find two Slidell people willing to be co-treasurers for the reunion so we can deposit money in a checking account and write checks to a DJ and a party shack.

2. Inquire whether the local party shacks will be ready and available in June to host us.

3. Pick a weekend. If Slidell is ready for us, I want to be able to give you an exact date by next Sunday.

4. Schedule some plastic surgery for myself, allowing enough time for the black eyes and scars to fade before our party.*

5. Recruit an artist to design our official reunion tattoo, which may or may not resemble our class mark.

6. Continue to Google your names to track you down and add you to my email list and beg you to send me other addresses.

Last month’s photograph showed Karen Daniels in Epcot Center’s Mexico exhibit during Grad Night weekend. Do you know her address or her approximate location now? Today’s photo features me, my pointy elbow, and a talented girl who now lives in New Orleans and volunteers for the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, one sponsor of this week’s Arts Alive, a four-day series of events celebrating art and culture. If you email me her name, I’ll give you a dollar.

*I’m just kidding about that plastic surgery. If you think I’m that full of self-loathing, it’s either because you saw what I drank last night or because your memory of me involves only my high school self. Won’t it be fun to get to know each other as adults, so to speak?