Reeling in the Years .. Last Chapter

After re-living my youthful escapades “up North”, we wended our way finally to East Lansing, my boyhood home (isn’t this riveting reading?) for our 50th High School Class reunion. Our last visit to East Lansing was for our last reunion, although the number escapes me at the moment. The sprawling MSU campus is still sprawling, and the town is showing its age, although a few of the shops remain. We took the opportunity check out my house at 258 Gunson, which given our mutual age is holding up pretty well.



A lot of the trees are gone and replaced by younger ones, but the street is still okay



With a tip of the hat to Mr. Wolfe, to some degree, you CAN go home again I guess..

We then began the purpose of the trip, the reunion. Friday night was homecoming for East Lansing High School, and we had planned to be in the parade



But the rainy weather canceled those plans (and the parade). Friday night began with a Pizza buffet at Coral Gables (still there) and our first chance to start re-acquainting ourselves with each other. I may have opined on this before, but it has been an interesting evolution of reunions culminating in this 50th. At first, say under 20 years, when we got together people pretty much stayed in the same cliques that they did when in high school. The jocks hung out together, the “in” social set of women who were cheerleaders kind of thing, and then there was the “nerd” crowd to which we belonged. Mostly ignored by the high profilers. But as the years do what they do to people, the edges got rounded (in a lot of ways), and you find out as always people are just people. Many have gone down different paths to various degrees of success, kids, changed marital status, and now we’re all friends. You get hugs from somebody who wouldn’t look at you in high school. It was a really fun time. Saturday night we had the dinner in the University Club on campus. There were tables with memorabilia on them,



some people brought our yearbook, pictures were taken, there were nice centerpieces with throwback stuff in them (the original Crackerjack boxes, for instance). There was no organized “program” although there were a few remarks made, but mostly we just socialized. The food was a buffet, but actually I’d have to say the food was good. There was some nice grilled flank steak, a glazed salmon dish, and I believe chicken. But the focus was generally on conversation. A fun time. Stuff like this



And we were honored to have our (State Championship) basketball coach join us, Mr. Gus Ganakas. Although he was Gus to us, some might remember that he was head coach at MSU from ’69 to ’76.



Again, as MFO said who would care about this stuff? Well, we did and as you know I sort of live my life on this thing, so wanted it to be part of the record. A highlight for me was catching up to one of my best friends in high school and finding out we still had a lot in common, and will continue to e-talk. Turns out he’s as much a beer connoisseur as much as I try to be about wine. In fact, he took a side trip to visit a brew pub in Grand Rapids as well as going to a special store there. His drive home will be with a full trunk.

So, that’s about it for “the trip’. Fun to see something different and re-kindle old relationships. Be sure to do it if you get a chance.

Roadie Notes:

Stats: 2733 miles, ~150 gallons of gas, 30 state license plates

Signs: Frog and Towed Towing Co.; Bedrock Liquors; Birdbath and Beyond; Pasties

Bumper Sticker: I survived cash for Clunkers

Quote: Speaker conversation overheard at a drive through at Fazoli’s: “welcome to Fazoli’s, I’m (Suzy) and I can take your order”.

Sights: Drive from La Crosse to Escanaba; seeing “aunt lee’s” store

Biggest Frustration: every day a new day trying to connect to the @#%$&&%@ internet

Foodie: Fried Pickles, Planked Whitefish, Perch, don’t worry about Butterburgers, Breakfasts at the Hungry Peddler (fer shure).


And through it all we

DFD