By Jeremy Couso
SusanvilleStuff Publisher and Editor
It’s been a while dear readers, and I apologize for the gap between issues of Dispatches, but June, an already jam-packed month around here, has been a month fraught with website technical crises and looming projects. It seems like each week as I set down to write this column some new problem would arise, demanding my attention.
To be honest, I am a little leery starting out today’s column, just because I’m worried something new will break! “Don’t worry, she’ll hold together… You hear me, baby? Hold together!“
35 Years Flew by Didn’t They?
I am feeling old. Or, maybe, more accurately I am ‘feeling my age.’ Next month is my high school class’s 35th reunion. I can’t decide if I want to go or not. Is this normal?
I read a statistic that said only about 30 percent of a graduating class attends their reunions. Back and forth, back and forth, I just can’t make up my mind.
Usually, we have our LHS reunions during the County Fair and either I have a valid excuse because I am playing in the band that night, or actually playing music for our reunion like we did last time. But this year I have no excuse, my calendar is empty that night, I just don’t know if I want to go.
Those of you that know me well, know that I am not a social butterfly. I don’t ‘mingle’ well. At a social event like a reunion, I will be lucky to last half an hour before I am begging Mrs. Couso to let me sneak out the back door.
The last time I went to a reunion that I didn’t play music for was our 25th. We had it at Lassen Ale Works at the Pioneer and I think I made it about an hour before anxiety kicked in and I ran away.
Our thirtieth, in 2018, we had out at Sentimental Journey and it was awesome! Our band Forgery played so I just got to voyeuristically watch my fellow classmates from behind my keyboard. So much easier on my social anxiety. Put me behind a keyboard or a camera and I will be just fine.
The other day Mrs. Bennett, a fellow class of 88 graduate, posted a photo taken some time during our senior year of Freddie Franco, Russell Smith and Brad Birkett and I, with a prompt to buy tickets to the upcoming reunion. I’m not sure what feelings that is supposed to spark – joy? curiosity? nostalgia?
And somehow, I feel that by this point in my life I should have worked this all out and gotten past it.
But then… I just looked at the group picture we took at the last reunion, five years ago, and there are a lot of faces there that I would like to say hello to again. People who I like, that I don’t get to talk to often enough, and it might just be a wonderful evening to sit down and visit.
Just getting to have a conversation with those folks, in person, one more time, might really be all the impetus I need to go. Now I’m kind of looking forward to it.
See what poor Mrs. Couso has to put up with?
The Class of 88’s 35th Reunion celebration will be held on July 22nd at Sentimental Journey. There will be drinks and appetizers at 6:00 and dinner at 6:30. We are old, so bedtime will be around 9:30. If you would like to purchase tickets online you can follow this link.
Tickets are $50 each and, “Includes dinner, great conversation, and amazing people.”
