Put Together

Nobody has yet nominated me for a Stacy and Clinton makeover.  I'm skeptical about impressions but became a little less skeptical recently when I reacquainted panim el panim with a very gracious girl, now an elegant lady with an appearance well under her actual age, who I had not seen except in a Facebook picture in 50 years.  We had identical class schedules as high school sophomores, separated only by French for which she attained real proficiency and Spanish with my skill limited to letting Hispanic patients know I cared enough about them to converse briefly and read cast-off copies of El Diario from the floor of the NYC Transit trains.  I found her at the time cute, pleasant and intelligent, maybe the first time I ever really singled out one girl from among the masses.  I do not know how she found me but she seemed to go the hippie or beatnik track over the ensuing two years while I kept focused on my grades and college aspirations.  She and one other remained as prototypes which in due time approximated my wife, also cute, gracious, and intelligent with similar stature and identically colored hair.  I was anything but drawn to style, though as an early career entrant I understood from John Molloy's Dress for Success that appearance could serve as a useful tool.  Once my Brooks Brothers Credit Card was no longer needed, when my professional skill spoke for itself, it was a return to Goodwill and Boscov's for wardrobe staples.  And I never gained the graces of small talk, memorable handshakes, or the stylish haircut.

My friend and I went our separate ways, literally coasts apart and ideologically probably still within a light-year of each other.  However, we shared a valued acquaintance.  Her elderly aunt of abundant accomplishments attended my shul where I was mostly recognized as the Yom Kippur Torah reader.  Facebook when it came out reconnected a lot of high school chums, most of whom I have become closer to now than when I attended.  Friends of this type gather largely out of curiosity.  A few annoying political posts or comments or becoming a noodge with too many C'est Moi's in the manner of Miss Piggy invites the recipient to snooze for a 30 day respite, unfollow, Unfriend, or in the most egregious situations to block.  I got Unfriended by this former classmate the day after saying there were valid reasons to vote for Reagan, something the majority of citizens agreed upon at the time but announced the unpardonable sin to others

The irreversible aging process caught up with my friend's aunt, actually everybody's surrogate aunt, expiring at age 95.  There are funerals and there are celebrations of life.  Sorrow yes, tragedy no.  About 100 people assembled at the Jewish funeral home, some traveling considerable distance to attend.  A few lines above mine in the Guest Book was my friend's hand-printed sign-in, handwriting far better than mine.  She had come with her husband and son from the West Coast.  Though I had not seen her in 50 years, there was that FB profile photo posted several years earlier and not yet overwhelming attendance in the pews, so I had little difficulty identifying the old hometown girl.

Introductions to each other's families then ensued, briefly as the ritual of funeral was to commence shortly.  While she may have gone the hippie route as a high school senior, there were no love beads, headbands, flip flops, or overdue grooming characteristic of Vietnam War protesters.  Instead I encountered a most elegant person.  Her hair had been preserved in its color of youth, or at least it was not the grey color of mine, her husband's or her late aunt's.  The style duplicated that of the FB photo, probably beyond the skill of most people to maintain on their own.  Her clothing fit properly, an inviting mixture of burgundy and black.  I did not catch the shoes nor give the earrings enough attention to remember anything about their design.  She had averted the gait alterations and osteoporotic features of her aunt, not quite thirty years her senior.  Some conversation followed, still as gracious as I remember half a century back, repeated the following night at Shiva.

Our high school popular people arranged a 50 year post-graduation gathering for later this spring.  The confirmed attendance list is posted periodically by the organizing committee.  No black alumni coming, even though well represented in the class of 1969.  AP classes, where my friend and I still intersected our last two years, woefully under-represented.  Ugly ducklings transitioned to swans not coming either.  Juvenile delinquents one step from Reform School but living as mainstream adults, at least as I remember them, not on the attendance list either.  Don't know who on the attendance list needed to secure consent from their Parole Officers.  The popular people who got invited to the parties as teenagers arrange for themselves one more.


In the Chapel, my friend and I concurred that Florida seemed an undue schlep to greet the people that you see on Facebook posts most days.  The committee deserves lashes for not going beyond Facebook or word of mouth to capture the people who you haven't seen, maybe forgot about or never missed them, the people who really had been lost to follow-up but are worth a revisit, as my friend was to me.  No doubt those who spend the $149 reception fee will dress to the nines, get hair done, mani-pedis, maybe have their lens implants just in the nick of time to avoid eyeglasses.  My friend and I will not likely exchange handshakes or hugs, as our common personal link now belongs to the Ages. I did get Refriended, though.  I will remember her as stunning and poised which has its advantages over my natural frumpy and gauche.