Phil Elmore: Individual Authoring Services

Yes, Mr. Elmore, There Is A Santa Claus
In Which Our Sardonic Hero's Faith In Humanity Is Restored

Prior to this weekend I remembered High School with disdain, when I bothered to remember it at all. I was never a happy or well-adjusted child; in fact, I was a horrible little nerd who harbored the secret desire to kill just about everyone I knew, and my academic career prior to college probably did more to nurse the stubborn, coiling streak of misanthropy dwelling at the base of my being than any other factor during the first 2.8 decades of my life. Imagine my surprise when, during the course of a single, smoke-filled evening, my perspective of my teen years changed completely and utterly.

On 28 October, 2000, I attended my 10 Year High School Reunion. From 1986 to 1990 I attended Newark High School in Newark, NY. Our graduating class was something more than 100, I think, but I don't recall precisely. I was not enrolled in any clubs or extracurricular activities, although I did appear in our yearbook after being voted "most intelligent." I was my class valedictorian, and I gave a speech at graduation; I was so nervous during that speech that I couldn't remember giving it the second after I was finished. I do remember that my mortar board was crooked because I had to take it off during the beginning of the ceremony. And I remember getting a standing ovation from my classmates -- which should have tipped me off to the fact that I've spent years failing to give them the credit they deserved.

I was never very close to anyone before I left Newark to go to college. I had a few people I considered friends, but even then, I spent most of my teen years behind walls of my own making. Therefore it was with a mixture of curiosity and vaguely nauseous dread that I responded in the affirmative for the reunion. I wasn't sure if I would feel as out of place and unwanted as I always felt in High School; I wasn't sure if the people I saw -- many of whom I counted as, at best, neutral strangers -- would even want me there, or if they would break off into old High School cliques and forget my existence. That, I suppose, was the worse fear: that I would be simply a nonentity, beneath notice.

My curiosity got the better of my anxiety, however, and so this past Saturday I threw on my duster and drove my middle-of-the-road Pontiac Grand Am to the Clifton Springs Country Club. I sat in my car in the parking lot for a few moments, backed into position at the far end of the lot so I could survey the scene. I saw a few people drive up, and each time I wondered: is that someone I knew? Will I recognize anyone after ten years?

The moment I walked inside, hung up my duster, and entered the dining room of the country club, everything changed. Ten years of holding my high school memories at arms' length melted away. As I wrinkled my nose at the name tag containing a photocopy of my high school yearbook picture, I realized with a start that the comparison was actually quite favorable. As fellow NHS graduates began to arrive, I realized just how inaccurate my High School memories -- tinted by the lens of my hard-fought struggle to decide who I was -- had been.

People who I was sure never knew or cared who I was greeted me by name with genuine affection and enthusiasm. Gone were the tribal lines of High School, the social circles with their elaborate Venn diagrams of who was permitted to speak to whom. While we split up into familiar groups when it came time to sit for dinner, we were happily dispersed and thoroughly mingled throughout the bar and dance floor by the time green-shirted staffers brought the dessert course. Over and over again I was struck by just how friendly everyone was. More than that, I was amazed that these people knew who I was, and were glad to see me.

The past ten years have been kind to my classmates. Many of them looked the same, but quite a few of them looked even better -- healthier and happier, not to mention slimmer. Yes, some of us had gained "A few L-B's," as my friend Joe Holgado put it, and while I'm in better shape than I ever was in high school, I was among those whose hairlines weren't quite exactly where we left them in 1990. One of my classmates turned up looking spectacularly fit and tanned, dressed like an executive from the set of Miami Vice, with a woman who could have been professional model on his arm. Many of us are married or headed that way (it was with great pride that I showed off a picture of my wife); many of those present had children. All of us were in high spirits.

Several of my classmates nodded, satisfied, when I told them that I am a technical writer now. A couple of them mentioned they thought I would be working for NASA or some such place now; I remarked that with the rate NASA has been crashing or losing spacecraft, my chances of being accepted there are really looking up. More than once I was told that a rumor has been going around that I became a Harley-riding biker, which may trace its origins to sightings of me during visits to Newark while a student at Alfred University (where I wore a leather jacket, shaved my head, and generally looked the part of a biker, I suppose). At one point, during a trivia contest in which we answered questions like "name the 1990 Homecoming Queen nominees" and "name the individuals sent home for disciplinary reasons during our senior trip," the question offered was, "Who was our class valedictorian?" My friend Joe began slapping me furiously on the back, and I have to admit my face hurt from smiling so much.

When I finally threaded my way through the hazy bar and said my good-byes to those who weren't acquitting themselves quite well on the dance floor, it was with both awe and contrition. In the space of a single evening, the rivalries and petty nuisances and post-adolescent nonsense of High School evaporated, leaving only a sense of genuine friendship and shared triumph in its wake. We, the NHS Class of 1990, had managed to fight our way out of the wet paper bag of High School sensibilities, only to pile into each other as adults after ten years of walking wildly different paths. It's probably fair to say we were all pleasantly surprised at the difference a decade can make; it's probably fair to say that each one of us is more than we thought we would become.

I left, as I said, in awe -- because I realized I left behind more friends in High School than I ever knew I had. And I felt contrite because for ten years -- fourteen, if you count high school itself -- I failed to give my classmates the credit they deserved.

It is with great pleasure that I dedicate this column to you, the Newark High School Class of 1990. If all goes as planned, I hope to see you on 27 September, 2010. Collectively, you've done something I don't often admit is possible: you've taught me something about myself.

May the best of your past be the least of your future.