REUNION

Clean air greets me as I drive into the Silver Valley in the Idaho Panhandle for an all-class reunion at Kellogg High School in August. Trees begin at the valley floor and climb up across the foothills to the mountains surrounding the town. Both air and trees contrast sharply with the painting on the cover of my book, The Good Times Are All Gone Now, a work completed by my mother, Marie Whitesel, in 1961, the year I graduated and left Kellogg.

Population decreased over the last forty-nine years from around 10,000 in the valley to less than 3,000. Former students taking part in nostalgic festivities numbered around 1000. The green change from bare hills and smoke-filled air emphasized the numerous For Sale signs on residential streets and empty storefronts downtown.

Never mind. Memories were our stock-in-trade all weekend.

Lines to register and emotional one-on-one reunions filled the Middle School gym all Friday and Saturday morning. Informal bulletins for each decade of classes blossomed with yellow stickies of names and telephone numbers. A quilt with a patchwork of photographs of the various schools attended by all of us who grew up in the valley hung on one wall to be awarded by lottery late in the weekend. We looked at men and women we knew as youngsters, then checked their name tags. All the women spelled out their maiden names in big letters, as did I.

Skies wrapped us with blue; the sun emerged to warm and then heat us. The gym was air-conditioned. With a print of my mother’s painting behind me, along with several of Gerry’s photographs, I settled down to sell books–and sell I did–close to 100. My brother Bill, class of ‘58, arrived to keep me company and attract people from his class to us. Because many people stopped by to say how much they liked my book, which they had already read, or to buy one, I saw lots of older or younger classmates I might not have seen otherwise.

A Friday highlight was the memorial for Glenn Exum, our beloved band instructor, who died in 2000 at the age of 88. His son, Eddie, stood in front of a packed room at the Staff House Museum, and thanked everyone for attending. "My father loved Kellogg. Just before he passed, he said he wouldn’t have changed anything in his life." A few tears appeared. Others stood and told good stories–too late to go in my book–and we all celebrated what a wonderful teacher and man "Mr. Exum" had been. We were fortunate to have him as a demanding and superb teacher and band instructor, a good friend, an example to emulate and respect. Larry added another dimension: Mr. Exum, tall and broad-shouldered, drove a VW Beetle, worried in the ‘50s and ‘60s about the high cost of oil dependence. He helped stop a dam on the North Fork to preserve one of the few free-flowing rivers in the state.

Friday evening, each class met separately. Ours gathered at the Boat, a former drive-in and beloved institution of our teen years. We greeted and hugged, sat outside in the waning daylight, ate cheeseburgers and hot dogs and shared the beer, wine and bourbon we brought with us. A favorite couple from Nevada drove up in a cherry ‘57 Chevrolet, shining and vrooming. Stories of the former brothels in town circulated, again. Jesse, a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, grinned, just as he always has. Others who served in Vietnam thanked their stars they survived to be with us that evening. Pat, our hard-working class representative for nearly all our reunions, turned the reins over to another classmate for our 50th–next year. Oh my! I remember my mother attending her 50th in Twin Falls High School twenty-five years ago, and my thinking how old she seemed then–just about my age now.

Saturday, the reunion parade ran from the empty lot of the old high school, down Main, turning the corner at McKinley, down McKinley and turning the corner at Hill Street to the football field. Fire engines and autos with local mayors led the procession. Following them were the "high school" band peopled with former members–not including me this time. I couldn’t bear to march without Alan, my once competitor, who was not able to attend this year, not to mention that my memory no longer held the fingering and will to play. Twirling her baton was a former younger classmate, still looking good. A reconstituted drill team performed several intricate maneuvers. Behind them followed a parade of vehicles, representing the classes in attendance, beginning with the oldest from the class of ‘28! Old cars, new cars, and the cherry ‘57 Chevrolet for our class passed by, one by one.

I watched the parade near Dirty Ernie’s, where beer flowed freely. People lined both sides of the streets, laughing, clapping, smiling. Nostalgia filled all of us. After the last of the parade passed by, I drove to Coeur d’Alene to be with my mother, now 94. I missed the ceremonies and hope others will report on them. I didn’t miss the love and enchantment of old friends, both boys and girls, now men and women, who converged in Kellogg in August to celebrate our school and our town.