A mini-reunion at Disney

That's MINI, as in small. Not MINNIE as in mouse . . .

Yours truly braved the I-4 traffic and unseasonably cool weather today to get together with some high school friends for lunch at the Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney.

(Tip: Don't bother trying to find a parking space in any of the lots adjoining DD. You'll just end up as frustrated as an FSU fan. Instead, try doing like I did and park across Buena Vista Drive in the very EMPTY lot of the Casting Center. You do have to wait for the pedestrian signal, but the hike is actually shorter than having to park on the other side of Pleasure Island as some unfortunate socks wound up discovering . . . but, I digress.)

I hadn't seen my classmates Chris Deason and Cristi Davis in twenty years, which is a shame since they're both great people. Geography used to be my excuse. But, since Chris and his wife Kristi (also a classmate!!) and their girls moved to Casselberry last year, that excuse has been supplanted by sheer laziness.

So, when Cristi told me she was coming to Disney for a convention, I decided to remedy the situation. Thus the exotic safari-style lunch this afternoon.

Unfortunately, Kristi was too ill to join us. But, the three Frenship Tigers who were at the table had a great time swapping stories, looking at old photos, and letting the kids take some new ones. Who'da thunk that three survivors of Mrs. Blackburn's infamous San Antonio adventures would cross paths again some twelve hundred miles or more away from where they diverged two decades ago? It's a crazy, yet wonderful world.

I suppose this makes up for missing the "official" reunion out in Wolfforth this summer! Maybe, we could lobby for the 25th to be held in Orlando . . . any takers?!?

That empty chair at front row left . . .

. . . I think that's the one they were reserving for yours truly?

Well, probably not.

If I'd been able to make it, and tradition held, I'd probably have ended up in the back row with all the other tall people!

Ah, well . . .

By the phone calls I've gotten over the past few days, it sounds like the class of '89 managed to have a pretty good time even in my absence.

Now, what do we need to do to organize a 25th at Disney World? Anyone? Anyone?

There in spirit

Well, ye socks, somewhere in a small West Texas town, my high school classmates are gathering to kick-off our 20-year reunion.

Unfortunately, geography and other considerations have kept me in this little corner of heaven.

But, I hope they have a good time and take lots of pictures. I need to do some updating of ye olde photo album . . .

That's how I roll . . . er . . . rolled.

Still rehashing old memories from high school in these days leading up to the big reunion.

It got me thinking of my wheels.

Turns out I was WAY ahead of the curve on the whole fuel efficiency thing when I was tooling around West Texas in a little "rice burner." That's right, my 6'3" frame once crammed itself into a '79 Honda Civic Hatchback.

It looked an awful lot like the one pictured here, except mine had an "awesome" orange pin stripe racing down each side . . . those stripes being the raciest thing about the car.

To be honest, I pretty much drove that little car into the ground. I got the odometer to turn over for the third time while delivering for Pinocchio's Pizza in Lubbock.

Sadly, the little work horse had to be put out to pasture right about the time we all graduated, and I "traded-up" to an Oldsmobile Delta 88 . . . aka The Land Yacht. But, that's a whole other story . . .

Friday Night Football

I don't suppose you can talk about your high school experiences in Texas without at least mentioning football.

Even if you weren't on the team, the weekly games were a central fixture.

At the very least, it was cheap entertainment for a small town that didn't have a whole lot of alternatives. (Wolfforth, Texas, population 1,701, salute!)

All the games have a way of blurring together after this many years, til all you're left with are the broadest strokes on the canvass.

I halfway remember the time the stadium lights went out in the middle of a game. Does that count?

Really, I think I spent most of my time sauntering between the bleachers and the concession stand. (Who can resist a bag of Fritos and chilli?!)

Of course, the real highlight of the evening was beating a path into the "big city" of Lubbock so we could watch the recap of all the area high school games on the big screen tv at Mr. Gatti's.

Years later, when I was in college, I found out one of my fraternity brothers had worked at Gatti's in high school and that the employees there used to dread it when the Frenship folks would show up on Fridays, and insinuated that they may have tampered with our food orders.

I hope he was just trying to get my goat. But, either way, I guess most of us survived. I wonder how many may stop by the old place to swap clearer recollections of those Friday evenings this weekend . . . if it's even open anymore . . . hmmm.

My run-in with a ghost

Reminiscing about high school shenanigans, I cannot gloss over my supernatural encounter during a Spanish Club field trip to San Antonio.

Our intrepid leader, Mrs. Emma Blackburn, booked us rooms in the historic Menger Hotel downtown, within a stone's throw of the Alamo and the River Walk.

At check-in, the lady at the counter warned us that the hotel was supposedly haunted.

According to the tale, a chamber maid had been murdered in one of the upstairs rooms and her sad specter was doomed to roam the halls looking for the long-gone perpetrator.

Needless to say, this is the sort of thing that inspires mischief, and a group of us was determined to find that ghost.

So, after curfew, we organized a posse of sorts and began roaming around the labyrinth of hallways. Inevitably, our group broke-up and went in different directions, and I eventually found myself negotiating one of those hallways all by myself.

As I turned a corner, a woman in a flowing robe appeared at the other end of the corridor. She was walking--more like staggering--straight for me, with her arms extended.

Bravery went out the window at this point, and I did a quick about-face. Bounding down a stairwell in search of the rest of the posse, I lost my footing and took quite a tumble. I'm still not sure how exactly I was able to make it back to my room.

The next morning, my ankle was the size of a grapefruit. And, poor Mrs. Blackburn had to take me to a doctor to have it checked out and get me a pair of crutches.

I never did find out for sure if that woman I saw was in fact a ghost, though I was assured by my peeved Spanish teacher that it was probably just another hotel guest looking for an ice machine or something.

I guess I'll never know for sure. But, my ankle's never been right since . . .

20 years later . . . I'm still standing

Great, now I'm going to have that Elton John song stuck in my head.

Anyway, during this week leading up to my high school reunion, I thought I might post a few thoughts and remembrances of that bygone era.

I didn't transfer to Frenship High School in Wolfforth, Texas, until my sophomore year. And, I remember my first day of class there quite well.

It was Chemistry. The teacher was Marcia Talkmitt. And, I walked into a classroom full of people who didn't know me from Adam, yet seemed to have known each other since they day they were born.

It was an awkward situation to say the least. But, such is the life of a military kid. And, I suppose everyone's teenage years are full of awkwardness.

The thing that makes this particular day stand out in my mind was the fact that Mrs. Talkmitt's delivery of sitting stools for her lab had not yet arrived. So, after she had gone thru the usual checklist of first day stuff, she suggested we all just sit on the floor until the end of the period.

Well, I wasn't having any of that. I'd just gotten a brand new pair of pants, and I wasn't going to sit on any chem lab floor. So, instead, I just leaned up against one of the lab tables for what felt like an eternity, appearing very standoffish, I'm sure.

Isn't it funny the little things like this that pop into your head when you reminisce about the "good old days?"

Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons (but, primarily geography), yours truly will not be able to make the trip back to West Texas to swap stories with my former classmates.

But, at least I'm still standing. And, I have the clean pants to prove it!