Argo Alumni Night

Tonight is the Argo Alumni Night and I will be attending. I look forward to it on many levels and on some others I really don’t. The reasons for this are somewhat complex. On the one hand I really love catching up with old friends, many of whom I have not talked to in forever. In particular I particularly enjoy catching up with my old peeps from my St. Fabian’s Teen Club days. It’s so much fun re-living those times and re-telling old war stories from that part of my youth. Even the friends I still hang with from those days I don’t hang with as much anymore.

Due to work and family life I don’t get a chance to talk and hang around with my old posse as much. Now when we want to get together we all have to check our calendars and make sure there is no conflict. It’s crazy when we want to go and get a beer on a Saturday we have to plan it like two months in advance. Back in the day, you would be bored so you would pick up the phone make a call and you would met your friends at the bar in a half hour.

Trust me I get it. Schedules are tighter and free time more limited. I don’t have kids of my own but trust me I understand that they take up a huge portion of a parent’s free time. We all have responsibilities and mortgages now. I try to hang with the old gang as much as I can but it is difficult sometimes. That is why tonight will be fun. It’s great to see everyone and I do feel good knowing that I’ve been friends with these people for twenty five years. We have shared experiences that form a bond. Talking about the retreat, the old haunted houses we worked, Dell throwing up at White Castle (that one will never get old) or driving aimlessly on a random fall evening in 1986 is priceless. I am not kidding when I say this I really feel blessed to have had those times and to have experienced them with an amazing group of people. It truly is great to see everyone.

On the other hand, being in a room with people I went to high school with brings up a lot of other stuff as well. I was a skinny, nerdy little kid when I started high school. I had friends but I also have some unpleasant memories of Argo as well. Let’s put it this way. My first two years of high school were not littered with many great memories. My Junior and Senior year I had a fricken blast. But those first two years were not fun.

In particular my sophomore year I really struggled. I felt picked on, nerdy, unpopular, and was a loaner. I never felt like I had much in common with my classmates. I was a fifteen year old kid who didn’t have a lot of confidence and while now I am not that person at all, being around certain people does drudge up those somewhat painful memories.

I don’t want it to sound like it was awful, and in the end I look back at my Argo days and smile. I made lifelong friends going to that school. However, a majority of my classmates and I just never hung out and that’s ok. I am not trying to put anyone down. Even when I was at Argo, I knew I wasn’t going to be hanging out with most of my fellow class of 87 graduates once school was over. At my ten year reunion, I wound up talking to Zar and Chuck for 85% of the evening. I just remember looking around and saying to myself, I just have nothing in common with most of these people mainly because I just was not part of their click.

And again, that’s ok. So, tonight while I really can’t wait to see the old gang I know a part will be trying to suppress that geeky fifteen year old teenager that is buried way deep down inside. I know I am not that kid anymore. I am in a good place in my life for the first time in a very long time. I have a good job and have very little to complain about. But being around certain fellow Argonauts will for whatever reason, stir up some shit inside me. But, fuck it I still am looking forward to it and I am sure even without drinking I will still have a lot of fun.