The group planning the 30th reunion of the Upper West Side progressive high school (UWSPHS) that no longer exists met last night at a pastel colored Italian restaurant on the UWS that has a screened off party area perfect for about 80 people.

We gathered at the bar for a tasting of the food the waiters will be passing around at the party. There will be no sit-down dinner: "Who wants to be stuck sitting next to someone at a reunion," someone said.

Present at the meeting were: MAGAZINE PUBLISHER, SCREENWRITER, CORPORATE LAWYER, INSURANE SALESMAN and GRACIOUS HOST (so-named because he has gracously hosted all the other meetings thus far) and OTBKB.

HEDGE FUND, OPERA SINGER, REAL ESTATE AGENT, and TELEVISION PRODUCER were unable to attend.  There was an email that suggested that all or some of them were haunting the event. Other words were deemed more appropriate. HEDGE FUND wrote:

Haunting" this event? Surely you meant to use a different word. "Titillating?" "inspiring?" "stimulating?" motivating?". CORPORATE LAWYER – help me out here – you still have that cool vocab, yes?

To which CORPORATE LAWYER suggested the word: "Permeating."

So for the group present and those who were permeating the meeting, there were many matters to discuss and it took forever to get around to the agenda that was prepared by GRACIOUS HOST. Because we were a small group and we were in a restaurant the evening had an even more social feel than the other meetings. There was more catching up, pictures being passed around, questions: "So what does your husband do?" or "Where did you go to law school?" or "Your parents were holocaust survivors, I didn’t know that?" or "My daughter has terrible stomach aches…"

People were conversing across the table, diagonally, and side to side. It was a bit of a conversational cacophony but it was easy to slip in and out of conversations.

The past still looms large, even for this group that has met four times to plan the event. Axes to grind, old situations to discuss, stuff…

The biggest issue of the night was news that we have to change the date. CORPORATE LAWYER e-mailed the group  earlier in the week that he would be unable to attend the event due to the timing of a company retreat. The group agreed to try to find another day for the event. A humorous e-mail went out:

So is the invite going to read?:
CORPORATE LAWYER
AND THE UWSPHS THAT NO LONGER EXISTS
CLASS OF ’76
INVITE YOU TO CELEBRATE
OUR 30TH REUNION
ON A DATE CONVENIENT
TO CORPORATE LAWYER
I need to get this to the printers asap so just let me know.

That made me laugh. Last night when we finally got down to business, we moved quickly through the agenda interupted only by courtesy glasses of Italian liquer and dessert.  There is some disagreement as to whether there should be a program at all. Everyone agrees to keep it short. MAGAZINE PUBLISHER feels that "People are there to talk to each other — not to listen to speeches." She was glaring at me as she said that because I was the one who came up with the idea of the program. Music has pretty much been ruled out. "Nobody wants to hear a jazz band that they never cared about to begin with," she said. CORPORATE LAWYER looked crushed; he was the band’s saxophone player and is pining for a chance to blow his horn.

The program at this point will be speeches by GRACIOUS HOST, SCREENWRITER, HEDGE FUND, TELEVISION PRODUCER AND CORPORATE LAWYER, MAGAZINE PUBLISHER will lead a memorial to a classmate who died a few years ago.

In the last few days, NEWSPAPER EDITOR uncovered a treasure trove of videos in Los Angeles of all places from our days at the UWSPHS That No Longer Exists. It seems that someone (who now lives in LA) had the wherewithal to grab all the video tapes before the school closed down (and tossed these tapes in a big trash dumpster). SMART THINKING. Musicals, plays, performances, assemblies, a documentary made back then – it’s all in L.A.

It remains to be seen what format it is in (2 inch reel to reel video was the format back in 1976) and whether we’re going to show it at the reunion. If MAGAZINE PUBLISHER is right: no one wants to see it. Now, we’re talking about making a DVD of the highlights and giving that out as a party favor.

SCREENWRITER AND I took a cab home with GRACIOUS HOST and CORPORATE LAWYER. They got off in lower Manhattan, of course, and we continued on to Brooklyn. We counted the number of glasses of wine we’d had  (5,6, I lost count). The waiters were keeping it flowing. The restaurant was wining and dining us – I guess they want the gig.  Sambuca on the house. Consequently we were spinning a bit, a little drunk, tipsy.

When Screenwriter got out of the cab, the driver, who was wearing a bright red turban, asked me if we were lawyers. No, I said. I told him we were all friends from 30 years ago. "We went to high school together."

"I see," he said. "I see."