THE REUNION - (Part 1)

Checking In

I love my Cadillac. It took thirty years to get it and I enjoy everything about it. Especially the hood ornament. I love sighting down it at blue haired old ladies doing 24 in a 55 zone.   I love pretending that I have machine guns mounted on my fenders and I blast away.

I've had a lot of cars in the last thirty years. Small ones, big ones, convertibles and one legitimate sportscar.  But I do love this giant, lumbering and loose Sedan 'deVille with leather interior - the best.

I pop in a Wagner Overture and pretend I 'm piloting a fighter plane, then a 747. I pretend a lot - especially on long boring drives.  Then I think about "Ole Yeller".

The 1951 Buick that Bub's dad gave him on his 17th birthday.  Faded, dinged yellow with a black top and 13 years old, but still in great shape. Try that with a Toyota of today sometime...I think - but I digress!

Each Friday night we would "cruise. Our route was always the same...down "The Great White Way" (our joke — for this really small town main drag).  Down High.  Left on Broad and another left and then we'd do it all over again.

Just the two of us. Two high school Juniors looking
for some "action" - HA!  Knowing in our hearts that it would never happened here and on this street. And both not sure just what we would do if we found some.

Bub, (his real name was Lewis) resided on a ring of Jupiter for most of his life, only occasionally coming to grips with the ways of earth - but he was a math shark.  Me? I liked the Red planet. We were both too damn smart, (as my grandmother Ethel would say).

When our names were called in class or a pretty girl crossed the street, we would return to the local frequency, usually a beat late. 

Bub was homely to say the least. He had the worst hair I have ever seen. It always looked like he just took a shower - it looked wet. He was our  quarterback on and off the field. I was a tackle.  I hated being a tackle as this was not a position of glory and scores - it was the position of the unheralded grunts of the game.

Bub and I communicated on a level much like Zen masters. We used a combination of ad-libbed one liners to weave a never ending stream of unconsciousness. 

"There's Woody's old Chevy.  

Bub mumbles, "Wood's Mom would!"
We both laugh our sinister, knowing laugh.

I say, "Yeah, your mom would too, wouldn't she." 

We laugh harder.

"Your Mommmmm," 
Bub says dragging out the last sound as long as he could before passing out.

And right in the middle of our childish levity a car down the empty street toward us and we pass - it's Pam and a car full of girls!  We blow horns in unison.

We can hear them screaming over the din of our motors and through closed windows.  I start to scream "HEY GIRLS" -  Bub shushes me, "CAL BE COOL" he orders as he does a two wheeled u-turn that one of the Chitwood Hell Drivers would have been proud of for sure.

We follow our prey.  But we aren't catching up.  I yell, "Can't this donkey go any faster????"  Bub squeeks, "NOPE...35 is about as fast as she'll go."

We think they turned.  We turn.  We have lost them - which is the story of our young predatory lives...I just can't believe it...

...a horn blows and I'm back from my reverie and on the Interstate.   Its pouring rain. The letter with the ticket for my Millville Memorial High School - 30th Reunion falls from the visor. It promises a "Country Funfest"! The form letter is from our class of '62 Vice President.  As Ronnie as Class President disappeared about twenty years ago.

I tune the radio.  The forecast - the rainiest weekend of the year is at hand.

I say to myself, "Frankly my dear, what the hell can I do this entire weekend in good ole Millville - rain or shine?"

And then I see the "Hol  y City of America" sign and it is still missing one of the L's  - missing since somebody pried it off on Halloween of 68.  

Maybe I check in the motel and cruise the White Way one more time...and finally be home.  

  (To Be Continued)