It's still a few years until my high school class' 20th anniversary reunion. Since graduating, I've had only incidental contact with former classmates. I was lucky. For some people, high school is a traumatic experience, but I got through relatively unscathed. At the other end of the spectrum, for some people, it was the highlight of their otherwise mundane lives. I just wonder about some people, and what's happened to them since....

JAN, the class beauty. Our school was well-integrated, so it was with affection that she was referred to as "The Most Beautiful White Girl On Earth." Jan drove boys, and, I imagine, male staff members, crazy with her incredible looks. Long, beautiful dark brown hair, a face that would melt any wicked witch, tight skirts that would drive boys up the wall. Before she graduated, she had already won several beauty contests. She didn't try for homecoming queen, and that's just as well; the voting would have been no contest. The great thing about Jan was that she was also a very nice girl. She was never too good to talk to anybody. Not a stuck-up cell in her entire make-up. I wonder what she's been up to all this time. I really wonder.

CHUCK, a very large, conceited, arrogant, overbearing football player. Make no mistake, Chuck was a great football player. He made all-everything as a defensive lineman. Trouble was, all the acclaim made him full of himself. Very full. He became very unpleasant to be around. Coming from a very Catholic family, Chuck thought Notre Dame would come-a-callin', along with every other college football program. Guess what? Never happened. A couple of players got scholarships from major programs, but not Chuck. After the Senior year, I never heard about him again. Just as well. I wouldn't recognize him without his letterman's jacket on, which he always wore.

JUDY was a very funny, and to be fair, quite attractive classmate who wasn't into the campus social scene at all. She would mostly keep to herself, or try to. She was good with quips & one-liners, and she cracked me up several times, especially in gym class. Then it happened: The Wonder Years made its debut, and guess who just happened to be an absolute dead ringer for Winnie Cooper, played by Danica McKellar? Yep, you guessed it. Suddenly, Judy was on every guy's wish list. Boys drove her crazy asking her out. I just wonder how many times since then people have said to her "You look like that chick from the Wonder Years"?

DEANDRU (dee-ann-droo) was a total piece of crap. He was a thug, a thief, a bully, a freeloader, and a great poster boy for the KKK. It's knuckleheads like DeAndru that have kept the Klan in business. He thought nothing of beating smaller white boys up just for fun or to take something from them. I don't know how many times he was in trouble at school, but it didn't seem to matter with him. He tried to hit on me, and actually got mad when I said no. He tried to act like an authority figure, like I owed it to him. He grabbed my arm, but luckily, a teacher came by at that moment, and he let go. Dumb ass. His biggest outrage was when he got his first car, a real junker, and really tried to play the big man role. He actually picked out a place in the student parking lot and tried to claim it as his. If someone parked in "his mutha-f'n place", he would find that student, and bully him into moving his car from there. Several times, the principal called him into his office and told him to knock it off, that you park where a spot is available, but again, he didn't listen. Finally, one fine day, he came to school late, probably drunk or on drugs, and ran all up and down the hallways, screaming at the top of his lungs that someone had parked in HIS mutha-f'n parking place and that they better move. That did it. He was kicked out of school, and thankfully, I haven't seen him since. Bet he's been in and out of prison in the years since. If he's even still alive.

HELEN was another one for the books. She was half white, half latina, and she truly downplayed the latina part. She was head cheerleader, homecoming queen, an overbearing Christian, a proud, card-carrying member of the Young Republicans, and very arrogant. I couldn't stand this girl. Every year since junior high, she would attend the high school's graduation ceremony, and at it's conclusion, be bawling her head off because she was so touched by the ceremony. We used to kid her about that, and she would get mad. She spent years looking foward to her own graduation to get emotional at. Then one fine day I arrived at school and someone asked me if I had heard about Helen? It turned out she and a very married handsome teacher were caught doing the horizontal hokey-pokey, and both were outta there! Irony time. No solemn graduation ceremony for Queen Helen! Don't you just LOVE sanctimonious Republicans? Always good for a laugh somewhere down the road. Helen has not been seen or heard from since.

Where, oh, where are they now?

I could list many more, but maybe this entry is too long already. Perhaps I'll do a Part II.

I LOVE lemon merengue pie. Especially when it's really, really tangy. A true mouth waterer if there ever was one.
I HATE what it does to me afterwards. The bloating feeling. The sudden, overwhelming feeling like I've just gained 200 extra pounds.

I LOVE visiting Las Vegas. It truly is a lot of fun. I love the fact that virtually nothing ever closes, and anything can happen there.
I HATE traveling to Las Vegas. You spend half an eternity going through that ornery desert. Then there's the heat, day & night, other drivers who think they're driving at Indianapolis, careless truck drivers, hunger pangs & bathroom urges hitting you 50 miles from civilization, and rattlesnakes sunning themselves on the road. You haven't lived until you've seen a squashed rattler.

I LOVE college football. As the old saying goes, the color, the pagentry, there's nothing else like it.
I HATE the fact that there is no playoff in college football. It doesn't make any sense at all. Everybody else in sports in the world has a playoff. We make 12 year-old kids go through a playoff in Little League. Why not college age football players?

I LOVE wearing high heels. They make me feel a little more confident. They can make me feel vampish. They give me a slight feeling of empowerment. They're great for the ol' self-esteem.
I HATE wearing high heels for more than 8-10 hours or so, continuously. Ouchies.

I LOVE it when a date takes me to a nice place for dinner, and maybe dancing. Always a great start and major brownie points.
I HATE it when a potential date just wants to eat take-out at home, and watch videos for his starters, and yet expects me to totally dress up for him. It don't work like that, dude.

I LOVE television when a good movie or a really high quality program is on. Of course, everyone has their own definition of quality, but when my definition is on, TV is great.
I HATE the fact that I hardly watch television anymore. Point made.

Who cares....

If Iran develops nuclear weapons? Doesn't the US, Russia & China have anti-missle systems all over the world to counteract any potential nuclear strike? And, does Iran have the gall to even shoot one off?

About Britney Spears and K-Fed? They're just another American dysfunctional couple headed for divorce court sooner or later, and doesn't the media and the public have much better things to worry about, like psoriasis?

If Barry Bonds uses steroids? Since the beginning of time, athletes have always looked for an extra edge of some kind. Remember East Germany and the x-y chromosone issues that they had? How about the old horseshoe-in-the-glove trick that used to be almost commonplace in boxing? What about Babe Ruth? He had a 296-ft. backyard porch for a target in the old Yankee Stadium. If you make good contact with a pitched ball, ANYONE can hit a ball farther than 296 feet. In addition, Ruth never played in a night game, when the ball doesn't travel as well. He never had to go through the hassle of cross-country plane travel in the middle of the night. He had the relaxing train rides that went only as far "west" as Chicago, less than 1000 miles from New York. AND, due to baseball's segregation policies back then, he faced an incomplete quality of pitching. Ballplayers are grown men, and should be aware of all the long-term risks. Let's not get so sanctimonious.

How badly President Bush is doing? In 7 short weeks, there will be mid-term elections, and once again, the Democrats will have a great opportunity to re-take the House & Senate. If successful, then they can begin the impeachment talks in ernest. It up to us to decide.

If Mel Gibson is anti-Semetic? It's not like racism & Hollywood are strangers to each other. And besides, isn't the popular perception that Hollywood is run by Jews? If that's the case, shouldn't Gibson's career be ruined about now?

About Soccer? Point made.

About tainted spinach? The easy, obvious answer to this would be to not eat any spinach! Simple. Even Popeye would go along with that.

If SUVs are gas-guzzlers? It's not like that's a new concept with car makers, and unlike past luxury cars, SUVs are useful & practical vehicles. As much fuel as they consume, we need them. Do something about the price of gas so that people will have more money to buy SUVs.

If Los Angeles has no NFL team? Retired commissioner Paul Tagliabue didn't. The league is doing just fine without the City of Angels, but more importantly, LA itself is doing just great without the hassle of TV blackouts, outrageous ticket, parking & concession prices, more local headlines about athletes behaving badly, bad on-the-field performances, stadium issues, extra traffic jams, expensive, overpriced team gear that local schoolkids will be practically killing each other to steal from, going years before the team even contends for a Super Bowl berth, and local fans who aren't well-connected, like 99% of them, shut out completly when LA hosts a Super Bowl. Who needs the grief?