I (Thought I) Screwed the Pooch

I took pictures at Saturday's picnic, part of the Celebration of Specialness that was the SMN '88 reunion.



Some people showed up who weren't at the boozer Friday night, and I learned the fate of a few more of my recently elderly classmates.





I think the shock of it is you look in the mirror every day so you don't see the aging any more than you can perceive the deepening of the Grand Canyon. So all these people I haven't seen since they were dewy-eyed eighteen-year-olds become middle-aged in a sudden and alarming way. Even the beauties who are still beautiful, none of us is getting carded for booze or smokes ever again.



As one classmate commented (a chick I remember spending some quality time in a parked car with, as a matter of fact), I've turned into a 'big, fat, old guy.' She said it with affection, but it's true.





I know, even the Mona Lisa is falling apart, blah blah blah.





So anyway, I headed over to tour the Nourishing Mother (that's what an Alma Mater is, I looked it up) to take a 'tour.'



The tour was unofficial, and I wondered in our security heightened age if we'd actually find we were locked out. But no, a couple of doors were propped open. And while a note at the entrance threatened criminal charge for those who didn't sign in at the office, the office was locked and vacant.





So we went poking around. Me and my honyocks, that is. We were ahead of my classmates because my kids' squirrelliness had gotten out of hand the fastest at the park.



I started by heading to the Orchestra Room which isn't the Orchestra Room anymore and was locked. Heading to the Band Room, I found my old Orchestra teacher finishing an interview with what I took to be a school newspaper reporter.



She asked if she could help me as Mo started to check out her office in her spooky way. I said I was looking for crazy old Mrs. McGee, thinking maybe my voice would distinguish me from the other thousand kids she's had in well over 25 years of teaching.



Her name isn't even Mrs. McGee anymore, she's Mrs. Hensel, but she admitted I'd found the person I was looking for. I still had to give my full name before recognition set in.



She then gave me and my offspring a warm tour (especially considering how systematically I tried her patience for three years) of the performing arts brach of the Nourishing Mother. The Band Room is now a much larger Orchestra Room, the new Band Room is an addition so large you could rehears marching band formations in it. There are practice rooms and a choir room bigger than the old Orchestra room.



There are flies in the auditorium stage, and a full blown set workshop between the auditorium and the Little Theater.

They're putting on Sweeney Todd, which I have to go see. It seems none of the other teachers I remember are still at it, but the one who built that theater program is still a presence. Witness the selection of Sweeney Todd as the fall play. When I was going there, the productions included The Foreigner (which I had the villain's role in), Mister Roberts, and so on. And it appears a full third of the student body is still actively involved in drama, an anomaly from what I've heard comparing notes with those who went to high school elsewhere.



But anyway, all the pictures I took on this adventure are toast. I could swear I downloaded them Saturday night after Roger left, but it was 3:00 a.m. and there was cider imbibed.



And Sunday, when I took Mo to Worlds of Fun (which I have a shit-ton of pics from), I formatted the card and clicked away, happy as if I had good sense.



Then, last night, I discovered that I hadn't downloaded Saturday's pictures after all.



I'd always heard how you could recover photos even after formatting a disk, so I downloaded some software to do that. I didn't buy it, I just did the demo, which gives previews of the pics you can potentially recover. I never did figure out how much it would cost to buy the program because the preview included only the Worlds of Fun shots and some from Ren Fest last week.



I guessed the WOF shots overwrote the space on the disk where the Saturday shots lived. So just when I'd decided I take too many pictures anyway, I find the picnic pictures. So I can now include the photographic evidence that we kids are pushing 40. And having fun anyway.



And I'm pretty sure Liz's list of people she recognizes just grew a bit. Heather, Corey, Roger, Sharese, just to name four...