By Linda Ensor

I missed my fortieth reunion. I missed my tenth, too, but so many people called that week-end that it was almost as good as being there. This time no one called; they knew I couldn't come so reports are trickling in.
And most of them say the same thing.
WHO WERE THOSE OLD PEOPLE?
The Sioux City Central High School Little Maroon Class of '62 had about 300 day students. We've scattered across the globe, of course. Even for the tenth reunion, classmates came from coast to coast; one GI came back from Vietnam. (I've always wondered how he made himself go back, but he did.)
Sioux City who, you say?
"We are the Ladies and Knights of the School"
Dear Abby and Ann Landers came from Sioux City. So did Ted Waite, of Gateway fame, and so did Jim Hindman, the guy who started up Jiffy Lube. Johnny Carson lived down the road, so did Dick Cavett, and Garrison Keillor was just north of us.
But I digress. Back to the Class of ‘ 62.
Every reunion has been fascinating.
At the tenth, everyone looked about the same, only grown up. People were really working hard on bragging rights for jobs, spouses, kids. Two couples were tied for the most kids (one had 10; the other would have the tenth any minute, possibly on the dance floor, we feared.) The quiet, chubby girl who no one remembered but me (her name was next to mine in the alphabet) had grown up (and how!) and was a Playboy bunny. Eli, a psychiatrist, had had an article about Richard Nixon in Parade magazine.
The twentieth was the great leveler. People had gotten over the need to compare themselves against everyone else in the room; people's hobbies were more interesting than their jobs. (This seems to be a universal pattern, by the way.) The guy with the very pregnant wife was with wife #2 and starting another family; he was now a minister. Lots of people were divorced. A couple who dated in high school had gotten reacquainted at the tenth; divorced their spouses and married.
Phil Pugh had changed his name to Hughes, and who could blame him? Phew!
By the 35th, the word was mellow. The cocktail dresses had been replaced by casual skirts and blouses. I wouldn't say that the guys had deteriorated to clean bowling shirt level, but there weren't a lot of sport coats in sight.
I should point out that these reunions are always held in August. You think South Carolina's hot in the summer? Try the same weather, but without the ocean breeze -- or the ocean. It's not just a legend that you can stand in an Iowa cornfield at night and hear it rustle while it grows.
Twenty-five of us are dead. My gosh, that seems like a lot! Susie, the cute cheerleader who used to beat me in the breaststroke meet after meet? Bobby, who just about decapitated five of us when he steered the toboggan under the swings? Steve, who sat behind me in home room and used to follow me around on dates but didn't have the moxie to ask me out until 15 years later, by which time he was a veterinarian in California and I was a divorcee in New York?
I was the master of ceremony at the 35th reunion, and I gave Bobby and his ex an award for being the best divorced couple there. He knew that night that he had brain cancer and that it would be his last reunion. So did Susie. They didn't spoil the fun of being together again with little things like that.
I've only seen a few photos from the 40th but it was enough to make me pick up the phone and say, "Well, it's finally time to make name cards using photos from the annual, so we know who we're looking at."
The guy with the very pregnant wives was with, yes, wife #3, the trophy wife - 20 years younger and yes, expecting.
Don't go to your reunions? Why not? They're liberating. They're part of who you are, and most of us find it's wonderful to realize you aren't that scared, shy, nervous, scrawny person any more.
Can't wait for the 45th, God willin and the creek don't rise.