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Part I - Insecurities Never Go Away Friday, August 11
Someone had e-mailed a few months earlier to suggest we have a high school reunion in August. I am a graduate of West Orange Mountain High School; class of 1964.
I didn't do the calculation, but one of the e-mails pointed out that this would be the 42nd anniversary of our graduation.
I wondered, via REPLY ALL, why we were having a 42nd reunion. "Why," I asked "didn't we have one last year - 41 - or wait until next year - 43 - both of which are prime numbers which would therefore, at a minimum, be amusing.
We didn't have that large a graduating class, but about 157 of them wrote back and said: "Because we're all turning 60, you dope."
Which may give you the slightest glimmer of the faintest glow of an insight as to my popularity in high school.
I pretended I had known that. I mean I know I'm turning 60 this year but, as it never occurred to me I would make it this far, I don't think it's that big a deal.
Fifty. Now, that was a big birthday because I could become an AARP member. Sixty? What do you get? Nothing. What you get is a strong desire for the early-bird meat loaf at about 4:30 in the afternoon. And another strong desire to drive at eleven miles per hour. In a big Cadillac. In the passing lane. With the right blinker on. Followed by going to sleep for the night during the 8:00 pm Law & Order rerun on the USA Network.
Right. Like you haven't had these things happen to you. You haven't?
Oh.
Anyway, I signed up for the reunion because I haven't ever been to one and now that I know I'm going to be sixty, this is likely to be my last chance.
The reunion is going to be held in Basking Ridge, New Jersey which (a) is not West Orange and (b) is a place I have never even heard of, much less ever been.
And, of course, because I am the patron saint of wait until the last minute, I got nagging reminders from Marla about making my reservation at the North Maple Inn at Basking Ridge, the site of the 42nd reunion of the Mountain High School Class of 1964.
This will be instructive: The North Maple in at Basking Ridge is located at 300 North Maple Avenue in Basking Ridge, New Jersey.
The hotel is very nice but I have not been able to find a ridge on which I could bask which is something of a disappointment and, if you ask me, a real marketing miss by the hotel.
Marla also nagged me to send in my $90 registration fee, which I did, but if there was some calendar of events, I missed it or (more likely) erased it. Then she nagged me for my brief history of what I've been up to since high school.
I finally got around to it and sent this:
He was also Newt Gingrich's press secretary; look what happened to him.
He was sent to Iraq for six months and you can see how well that's working out.
Nevertheless he maintains his sense of humor. To which Marla responded:
To which I responded:
To which Marla responded:
To which I responded:
I know, because I just went through this with Bob Beckel in the news room at the Fox Washington bureau a couple of weeks ago, that if you google "rich galen" you get a very, very lot of hits. This impressed the hell out of Beckel, who took solace in the fact that he had twice as many mentions as Ambassador Marc Ginsberg who, because he came in third, pretended he didn't care.
A couple of weeks ago, I was telling my friend who is from Minnesota about this reunion thing and he told me that he had just been to his 40th and he said that clothes people wore to the informal event on Friday night were the same as they wore to the formal event on Saturday night.
"Not the same type of clothes," he said. "The actual, exact same clothes."
On Thursday, I rented a car because at 108,000 miles, I no longer want to put the Mullmobile through the stresses and strains of the New Jersey Turnpike. Nor do I want to put myself through the angst of worrying whether a wheel is going to fall off at 65 mpg.
If any of you own a car dealership and want to make a deal … let me know.
The Mullings Director of Standards and Practices was very wise in choosing this weekend to visit her mom, so at about nine in the morning I threw my stuff into the trunk of my rented Taurus and headed north.
It is about a four-hour drive from Alexandria, Virginia to Basking Ridge, New Jersey and I needed to time this out. I had a conference call scheduled with a United States Senator at about 2-ish; and I was scheduled to do John Gibson's show at 5:30 which meant I needed to leave Basking Ridge at about 4 pm to make sure I could get to mid-town Manhattan in time.
I got to the hotel with no trouble and checked in. I asked in what room the "event tonight for the West Orange Mountain High School Reunion" was going to be held.
The young woman told me there was no event scheduled for tonight.
"Are there any events this weekend for the West Orange Mountain High School Reunion?" I asked with no small amount of fear in my voice because I am absolutely capable of getting the date entirely wrong.
"Yes. Tomorrow."
"Oh. Ok. Good. I'll just go to my room, then, and wait for everyone to pile in."
She smiled thinly and handed me my key.
The conference call only lasted about 20 minutes and, of course, I was bumped from the Gibson show so I had the afternoon off. I answered e-mails, took a nap, and found out that the restaurant stops serving lunch at two.
"¿Que?
"Jorge … never mind." The previous week, I had checked with one of my pals who now lives in Charleston, SC who assured me he was coming to this thing. I couldn't imagine he would drive from Charleston, so I assumed he would be safely in his room awaiting a call to get the party started.
"Mr. DeWitt's room please"
Loooooonnnnnnnggggg time on hold.
"I'm sorry. We don't have anyone by that name registered." Uh. Oh. I am beginning to think that I am the only one who is going to wear the same clothing on Friday night and Saturday night because I made the whole thing up about a Friday night event and because no one will have seen me in these clothes and I can safely wear them again tomorrow.
I decided to go to the bar and start this travelogue. I further decided I would smile at anyone who looks like they might be in the 60-year-old range in case they are a class mate. Of course, if they are the spouse of a classmate, there's no chance I would know who they are. And, given Marla's response to my bio, they won't know who I am, either.
In addition, given my excellent memory for names, I have a better chance of remembering the name of the President of Iran than the president of our senior class.
This, it turns out, is not a problem, because there are five other people in the bar. None looks sixty.
I have a feeling that there might well be a Friday night event of which I had been duly informed, but it will not be at this hotel and everyone has gone to where ever it is going to be held and not a single person will wonder where Rich Galen is. Or who Rich Galen is.
The hell with them. They can google me.
It is now 6:20. There is no one in the bar but two guys in coats and ties (who don't look 60) and me - which very, very close to that Johnny Mercer tune:
Here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to finish my second glass of beer, go back to my room, turn on the TV and watch the 7:00 Law & Order rerun.
I wonder if they have meatloaf on the room service menu.
Par-TEE!
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