20-Year High School Reunion

I pack a back this evening, as I and the fam prepare to travel tomorrow morning to Large Midwestern Metropolis (LMM) for Thanksgiving. Usually we host the meal here at Chesterley, but this year my high school class decided to hold its 20th reunion on Thanksgiving Friday. I guess they assume we all still consider LMM as "home." That is definitely not the case for this researcher. In fact, I think it's odd that this assumption has been made, especially given that about 97% of my 850-person class went to college upon graduation (and most had to go out of town to do so). But who am I to skew their reality with data?

I am not always that stylish in my choice of clothing, but I do care about how I look. I have a vague idea of what the hell I'm going to wear Friday night. It's pretty vague, though. So I just ran a Web search on the question, "What does a guy wear to his 20th high school reunion?"

Most of the articles that appeared are about women pondering what "little black dress" they will wear. I didn't find much about guys. And it's funny, because the more I read blog posts about people getting nervous about their reunions, the more I realized I'm just not at all nervous about mine. I am looking forward to it, not because I plan on renewing old friendships (why?) or reliving the old HS days (why??), but because I think the experience is going to be fascinating. I plan on studying the crowd, making conclusions, and reporting the results. I am a fearless researcher.

I'm a complete nerd, I realize. And I'm damn proud of it.

Also, I will admit that there are a few people that I'm genuinely looking forward to seeing again. I actually had a good time in high school, probably because the place was so darn big (n=4,000), and this increased the chances finding others who were as odd as I was. I mean am.

I think a sweater, a button-down shirt shirt, and decent pants will suffice for the evening. I even got a haircut today, a pretty amazing feat for a bald guy.