50 Years - Can it Be
50 Years - Can it Be?
By Sylvia Vick Hewitt
Late last year, some strange guy from Chapel Hill appeared to be stalking me on long unused websites I joined but never upgraded.
Hmmmmm. Strange, but I didn't worry about it much. After all, Christmas was coming and the days were full. Could have been James Taylor but that was wishful thinking.
Then came January and a note from Randy Faulk who lives in Chapel Hill.
Aha - the stalker is identified, but why? I opened his email. Randy had the temerity to remind me that 50 years had passed since we last saw each other and even longer since I last saw Benny Newlin. What a way to welcome in 2010. It has not been fifty years since I was in high school. How can that be? But I do remember Randy - he was cute - oh dear.
A few swift calculations that required no math formulas soon proved that Randy was correct. Fifty years and a lifetime have gone by in a flash.
Furthermore, Randy was chasing down everyone in the class to remind us all of those years. Not only did he want to remind me, he wanted us all to show up for a reunion.....a 50th Class Reunion in Sanford? Good grief, why? There will only be all those old people I don't recognize.
And, and I'm not one of them anyway. I don't even recognize that woman in the mirror every morning. I pondered for a while I before I remembered I knew a lot of really nice people back then. Sneaky Randy knew I would start thinking about that, I suspect.
OK, emails and telephone calls I can handle...even a lunch or two. Maybe the reunion might be fun. After all, its not until June. Plenty of time to lose 50 pounds and change my hairstyle. I'm tired of that old lady I don't recognize in the mirror staring back at me every day anyway.
There's time to fix everything....five months. I can make this work.
Next thing I know, old friends start popping up in my emails and on the telephone. To my surprise, I live in the midst of a large number of classmates down here on the coast. How was I to know that I had probably run over one of them with my grocery cart numerous times because we shop at the same Harris Teeter? Others have tried to upgrade their names but are having little luck. Seems we may change some things but first names, not so much.
Still its fun to hear from old friends. Now, "old friends" suddenly takes on new meaning. How will I recognize anyone anyway? Then I hear one of the guys has requested name tags with big letters to be worn high on the chest so he doesn't look like he's staring at boobs when he's only trying to read name tags. Well, 50 years later, the name tag strings can be a lot longer than he thinks because most of the boobs have moved south anyway.
The weeks pass. Looks like I'll be traveling the week of the reunion and won't be able to go. However, the emails are fun. OK - have another piece of cake. Not going to the reunion anyway.
Suddenly it's May. I've loved the emails, the website is like my own private walk down memory lane. The list of those coming to the reunion is getting longer and I remember everybody. So I quit with the desserts again. Maybe I will be able to go to the reunion. I send in my money but that old lady in the mirror keeps following me around.
It's the first week in June. Travel for work isn't happening. Over 150 people are going to the reunion. I haven't lost the 50 pounds. I haven't dyed my hair. I haven't gotten a face lift and there is no way I can walk in five inch heels anymore but I'm going to the reunion.
That old woman in the mirror is now having the last laugh, but I'm going to Sanford. I'm going to see everybody - and June 1960 will seem just like yesterday this coming Saturday.
