A couple of years ago we had our 50-year reunion of the class of 1968.  You may have read in some of my stories that I’m a fan of high school reunions. I’ve found that, unlike what I’ve heard and read about them, they tend to be really positive events.  I have fond memories of these reunions and of my classmates in regard to our reunions.

This story is about an exception to that rule, but lucky for me, I'll get over it fairly easily.

If you are among my classmates, at this point I have a few things I should probably tell you.  1) I’m not at all like what I was back in the days of school — at least, I don’t think I am.  2) Most of you seem to me like you’re pretty much the same as you were in the old days, and that’s a good thing; but if that’s not the case, that’s fine too.  You can be however you want to be.  3) As we grow older, my memory has faded.  3A) When I say ‘faded’, I mean really, really ‘faded’, like when you can’t remember where you live, so you go knocking on doors until someone recognizes you and invites you in.  4) I never was very good at small-talk, so it’s highly possible that whenever we’ve spoken to one another at our reunions, I haven’t adequately conveyed to you the high regard in which I hold you.  5) I’m still self-centered enough that it’s difficult for me to engage in any conversation in which I’m not the center of that conversation;   I’m working on this, but I still have a long way to go.  6) The list of my social problems goes on and on, but I’m sure you get the picture.

Having told you that, now let me tell you this:  One of my classmates came up to me at the reunion and said what I took to be the "meanest thing anyone ever said" to me.  At least I think it was the meanest thing ever said to me.  I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.  So I’ll just tell you about it and let you be the judge.

I brought a folder with me to the reunion.  It contained four large photographs.  They were:

1)  A picture of my good-boy Rottweiler, Sarge.

2)  A photo circa 1951 or 1952 of my older sister, older brother, and me, baby Wendy, on a farm.  In the early 1950s, before we moved to Woodward we lived on this as well as a series of other farms, all equally squalid.

This one was near Webb, Oklahoma.  That’s right, I said Webb, Oklahoma.  Look it up.  It’s halfway between Taloga, Oklahoma and Camargo, Oklahoma.  [It’s on my birth certificate; I’m the only one in the world whose birth certificate shows Webb, Oklahoma.  More on that in some of my other stories.] The photo itself is a real dust bowl style photo showing us in what could easily be mistaken for a tropical garden, but if you look closer you’ll realize it is just weeds.  (I’m soon going to place that photo near the front page on my web site, if nothing else as an example of the squalor of the Oklahoma dustbowl era.)

That was our front yard.  There was no backyard; the dust bowl had no backyards.  The photo included a really, really, cold looking outhouse in the background.  Our house itself was off the photo to the left, but you’re not missing much by not seeing it in the photo.  The house was about the same size and quality as our outhouse.   Anyway, I digress;  let me get back to the point of this story.

3)  My high school picture.

4) The last picture was the one most pertinent to this story, so I'm showing it to you on the next page.  It is the high school photo of my wife, Linda Riseley.  She had gone to school with us in Woodward during our last year of junior high school, the 9th grade, just before her family moved to Elk City, where she went to high school.  Still, almost all my classmates could easily recognize Linda.  As you can see from the photo she was, and still is, remarkably ‘picturesque’.  That's to put it mildly.  You can look at a thousand pictures of her, and she just continues to look better in each one.

And  then   it   happened.   One   of  my  classmates,