When The Smokehouse Is A Rockin...

For those of you who keep up with this blog, you probably know that last night was the big event I've made reference to in earlier blog posts - my ten year high school reunion.

Last night's festivities got under way at 7:00 pm at the Marshall Street Smokehouse in downtown Winston-Salem (at first, "Smokehouse" really through me as to what to wear and what to expect, but it turns out that the restaurant was neither filled with smoke nor was a house and was actually pretty cool). The husband and I showed up fashionably late at 7:15, but apparently we could have arrived an hour later as we were only among twenty or so others in attendance at that time. The party steadily swelled as the hours past, and by ten we were in full swing.

We were first greeted by the planners of the event who quickly labeled us with name tags, complete with my senior high school picture on mine (my husband's name tag was graced with a picture of our mascot, the Spartan). Who knew that seeing yourself with bushy eyebrows and sporting a black top and white pearl necklace could bring back so many memories! The journey down memory lane had just begun.

We immediately found our way to the bar, opened a tab, and began scouting out the room ("we" being mostly me, as the husband didn't know a single soul. Such a good sport). We chatted with some folks around us as I waited to see if any of my close friends from high school would show up soon.

For the most part, people looked the same. While ten years is certainly a good length of time, no one seemed to have changed too dramatically (there were a few folks who looked completely different of course, but I wonder if it was that I just didn't really know them during high school, and thus I just thought they looked different). Finally, after about an hour or so, some of my good friends starting shuffling into the bar and the real fun began.

It was great to catch up with everyone. There were a lot of laughs as we reminisced about classmates, places and events. We had the senior class video playing on a continual loop on the televisions at the bar, which was certainly fun to watch (I never made the video - obviously I didn't know the editors that well. It's all about who you know in high school and who you're friends with. Actually, that pretty much applies to life after high school as well).

I found out who had kids and who was recently married. I found out what people did for a living, and in what part of the country they did it in. I found out that our senior class president was black-listed from the invite list because of "troubles with the law" and I found out that one of my classmates had been on Fear Factor (hey, we all have our own goals and ambitions. Mine clearly did not involve eating bugs for money).

It's amazing how quickly you fall back into the high school scene. I noticed that social circles last night pretty much mirrored the social cliques from high school. But I also noticed it was easier to talk with everyone, even the elusive popular crowd, because really that stuff just kind of fades away over time, and you now all have one thing in common - your high school Alma mater.

The night was great, and I have to give mad props to my wonderful husband for sticking it out for four hours while I socialized with my friends. I'm sure ten years down the road I will eagerly look forward to my twenty year reunion. By then I'm sure my senior class picture will seem even more hilarious than it did last night.

Thanks to Erica, Lundon, Laura, Michael, Justin, Julie, Lauren and Sarah - it was great to see you!