My high school yearbooks recently found their way back into my life.
They're damn heavy. That was my first thought when they showed up in a paper bag from REI.
The books had taken a hiatus from my closet about this time last year. In the middle of a somewhat innocent conversation, I discovered that a friend was dating someone I actually knew, a guy who had been in my high school graduating class. It turns out that this guy now shaves his head, and has been doing this for years. In fact he seems to have buried any and all photos which show him with hair.
“You still have your yearbooks!” she squealed with excitement, and she’s not normally a squealer, so this was big. “And you even know where they are. That’s impressive.”
Not really. A few years ago, my mom was cleaning out all the closets in her house and decided that every piece of evidence from my childhood had to be evacuated from her house. Immediately. Not only do I have yearbooks, but art projects from second grade, out of focus photos with thumbs in the corners from long-forgotten family vacations, and an “all about me” journal/book I wrote for a 6th grade English class.
My friend arranged to come over to my apartment for a yearbook viewing. And she found what she was seeking: photos of her guy with hair, big hair and lots of it; it was the 1980s after all.
After laughing quite hard, my friend asked to borrow my yearbooks so that she could show the guy the photos and one-up-on him in the whole “I’ve seen your true follicle display” department. Since the yearbooks hadn't been opened in years and were only occupying valuable real estate in the back of my closet, I said, "Why not?" and lent them to her.
Flash forward to my 20th high school reunion early last month: I decided to go, despite my general non-reunion disposition. Of course, one of the first people I saw there was the the guy.
“How dare you!” he greeted me. Most everyone else started with something more polite like, “Oh. Wow. You. How’ve you been for the last 20 years?” Or, "You look great" (unconvincing, but still nice), or at the very least, "Well, isn't this weird?"
“How dare you!” the guy repeated.
I stared at him, not quite remembering the yearbook link.
“I mean you had every single yearbook. Every one. Who keeps every yearbook?”
They were expensive, I thought.
“And then who dares to show them to other people?” the guy asked.
I shrugged. We all looked bad. As I’ve said: it was the 1980s.
“I had those damn socks pulled all the way up to my knees,” the guy continued; he was referring to the track team photo.
“Sorry,” I said; it was the best I could come up with on the spot. “I didn’t realize…”
“I’m going to get you.” The guy wagged his finger at me. “I don’t know how, I don’t know where, but I will. When you least expect it, I’m going to embarrass you.”
And then the guy turned and ignored me in order to schmooze with some other long lost and now follicly challenged classmates who probably also wore athletic knee socks back in the day. And I wondered: what makes him think he's so special?
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