SWACfest was last Friday.

First of all, SWAC means "South West Athletic Club".  All the teams from the parks in this part of town are SWAC teams.  Those of us who went to SouthWest High School have appropriated the name.  We're all SWACers, whether we played sports, or lived in a SWAC neighborhood or not.  The word "SWAC" has deep significance to all of us.  Even the Westies, who grew up KPACers are SWACers by virtue of the fact that West high school was closed and demolished in the early eighties and all the Westies have gone to South West ever since.

Once a year, a place called Bunny's is the meeting place for an informal, all class SWAC reunion.  Last year, my sister Katie went and had such a good time she urged us all to go this year.  So last week, she gave us the heads up that it was Friday.

All six of us who live in town went.  Three of us are married to fellow SWACers, but only Joe's wife, Heidi, came along.  Andy's wife, ViAnne, stayed home with their four million kids.  Jay didn't go.  He claims to have invented SWACfest, but it's Friday during the basketball season; he had other things to do.  Woody should've brought Kathy.  As an Edina Cake Eater, she definitely qualifies as a Trophy Wife.

Mary Jeanne, Katie and I went together.  We got there at about 7:00.  Immediately upon entering the back door, I ran into a bunch of old friends.  None of them were in my class, but I know the whole family and we chatted for a minute.  When I got into the bar, the first person I saw was a guy who grew up a block from us, whom I've known since kindergarten.  As we were talking, a tall young man walked up and yelled "A Hubbell and a Lindmeier!"

I said "Who the hell are you?"

He told me his name and it rang a bell but I knew he was several years younger than me.  He proceeded to tell a story about the time he and a bunch of friends had come to the house to pick up Margy and as they were leaving, I had stuck my head out the front door and yelled to Margy that if she wasn't home by midnight she wouldn't live to see the dawn.  He told this story as though it were a heart warming, Hallmark type of tale.  It's taken him thirty years to find the guts to talk to me.

It just goes to show that you never know what you do that makes an impression on people.

George bought us a round of drinks and we spread out through the place to see who was there.

I then ran into Kathy, an old track team friend and the HomeComing Queen of JP's class.  She was there with her husband and at least two, maybe three brothers.  Back on the other side of the bar, a tall guy with silver hair and a bomber jacket yelled "HUBBS!" at me.

I had no choice but to be honest and admit that I had no idea who he was.  He told me his first name and I still drew a blank.  When he sighed and gave his last name, I was appalled at myself for forgetting.  In ninth grade he had shown up the first day with a crew cut and thick rimmed, Buddy Holly glasses.  This was 1974, a year or two before the Buddy Holly Story made Gary Busey a star and Buddy Holly an icon with our generation.  Looking back I now realize that Andy was by far the coolest kid in my high school class.  The way I remember it, everybody liked him. 

"You can't blame me for not recognizing you," I said "you don't look anything like you used to!"  For starters, he was about three inches taller than he had been and what used to be 'skinny' was now 'lanky'.

"I know.  I look old."  he said.  "you look exactly the same."
 
"No, I don't."  I said.  "I wasn't nearly this fat in high school!"  I didn't tell him that it wasn't that he was old;  it was that he was hot.
No, the fact that my brother in law, Tom, was standing right behind me had nothing to do with the omission.  Guys tend to think you're coming on to them when you tell them they're hot.  I don't know why.

At least four people from younger grades told me that they had been afraid of me back in the day.  I guess if I had been in the habit of yelling death threats out the door at my nearest and dearest, that was to be expected.

I said 'hi' to two girls who had been in my class and asked them what they'd been up to for the last thirty years.  They smiled and answered in monosyllables.  I asked if they were married and they shrugged, or nodded or something.  Is it supposed to be that hard to start a conversation?  Was I supposed to buy them a drink or something?

I figured they were trying to brush me off but then one asked me why I hadn't come to the reunion, "it was sooo fun!"

Omigawd, I thought, I'm bored shitless trying to talk to you for two minutes, if I'd been stuck on a boat for hours with you, I would've started a fist fight just to amuse myself!

I didn't say that, of course.  I'm not one of those idiots who thinks honesty is always the best policy. I'm a completely different kind of idiot.  I said I'd had to wash my hair that day. Or maybe it was my car, I don't remember. 

We split up and circulated around the bar, but knots of Hubbells kept winding up together.  I even heard someone say "There they all are; together as usual."  Well, I'm sorry but folks do tend to gravitate toward the most interesting people in the room and can we help it if that always turns out to be us?

I talked with a gal who was in Billy or Andy's grade.  She's very funny and also happens to be the aunt of one of Zack's best friends.  She and MJ and I had a few good laughs.  After we left her, she turned to our sister in law, Heidi and said "Is that little one old enough to drink?"  MJ may be little, but she's been drinking for fourteen years.  She's been old enough to drink for ten.

I had a very good time but after two and a half hours I hit my limit.  I'm deaf enough so that trying to talk in a bar is difficult, much less trying to talk to a hundred people at once.  Honestly, under the best of conditions, I can only do small talk for so long before I'm completely exhausted and over come with the urge to light something on fire.  MJ was tired, having been up with her baby most of the night before, so she was ready to go, too.  We weren't worried about Katie finding a ride home.  Three of our brothers were there and about a dozen others who have been trying to give her a ride home for twenty years.

MJ and I worked our way to the door, saying goodbye.

"I understand she's got a baby and has to get some sleep, but what's your excuse?" someone yelled at us as we fought our way to the front door.

"I'm old!" I shouted back.

Even I know it would've been rude to shout "I'm bored!"

Dang.

That would've been funny.