Reunion: the cartoon

First of all, I should mention the earthquake. We had a 5.4 shaker this morning, and rest assured that Mr. Gadget and I are just fine. As a native Californian, I'm an earthquake veteran, but Mr. G--with his east coast roots--is still a little green.

You may remember in my last post I wrote about the people who send their moving vans out this way after seeing the nice weather at the Rose Parade on TV. An earthquake above a 4.0 is usually enough for them to tell those big rigs to make a big ol' U-turn.

Now, on to the reunion. It was a smashing success! And in the interest of all things fun and silly, here is my cartoon review:

I brought balloons in our school colors, and home-baked chocolate chip cookies. I think of cookie-baking as sort of my trademark. I've never been to a wedding, birthday, funeral or reunion where homemade cookies didn't add to the festiveness.....Janet brought her guitar and led a few of us in a singalong. That's what Janet has always done for as long as I can remember. Then someone, I think it was Kevin's brother (see more about Kevin below), appeared with a ukelele. The festiveness was beginning to overfloweth.

Kevin showed up wearing his high school track jersey. He's one of those people you love to hate because his high school clothes still fit.

Joe arrived with a high school flag--a recent find at a garage sale. He brought along a bleacher cushion too. I wonder if bleacher seats are more comfy these days, or if football stadiums are still decked out with those hard, cold, metal character-building ones...
Sara and Annette, my two friends from kindergarten, came loaded down with pictures. Sara pretended like she'd forgotten all about the times she won my marbles. I'll bet she still has them stashed somewhere in her closet.....in those cute little drawstring bags. Annette brought along a blue mimeographed copy of the Top 50 tunes of our day. You young'uns will have to google mimeograph. Us old'uns will never forget the mimeograph-fluid aroma that radiated from our essay tests......or even worse, from our math tests. Oh, the horror....
Molly brought her yearbook so we could all be reminded of what we looked like back in our senior year, and which ones of our teachers were hotties. She also volunteered her dear hubby to do our pre-party dinner accounting. Thanks again, Art!

Lucy and Joyce brought their scrapbooks. You just know they gave up precious shoe space in their luggage for these treasures.

And Mr. Gadget, having graduated from a high school far away and finding himself without mementos for the occasion, brought along a giant economy-sized box of cheddar goldfish. I tried to tell him that our mascot was the mighty falcon and not the wimpy goldfish, but he turned a deaf ear. (Please try to ignore that scrappy-looking neck and missing shoe. I'm a primitive artist....)

It was a wonderful weekend for sharing hugs and special memories, and for marveling at how smiles and personalites seemed to weather the years free of tarnish. What fun it was to be 17 again.....