I’m leaving in a few minutes to make the drive to St. Louis, MO, where I’ll attend the seventh annual Cathedral Grade School Reunion. I’m as ambivalent about going as I was when the first one was held in 2013. Still, something compels me to be there.
And write about it.
After exploring several variations, we have the weekend’s schedule down pat. It’s a two-night affair with the first being held in a restaurant and the second in Mary Nina’s home. Unlike many of us, she stayed in St. Louis, raised her family, and was widowed somewhere in the time that we’ve had these reunions. Her husband, who was not a member of our class, isn’t the only one to pass on in seven years.
We all agree that Nina’s (She dropped her first name.) home is where the real conversations take place without noise from other diners, ambient music, and blasé servers. One might wonder why we do a restaurant at all, but it’s a good way to segue gently into the past.
This year it’s a smaller group — only 11 of us. I was the youngest in our class, and I turned 75 this past June. So you can imagine the various reasons attendance is dwindling. In a way, it’s an argument for having the reunions less often. But then we’d probably have to face that others will pass on between times.
Which is why I suspect we’ll discuss the 2020 reunion almost as soon as the 2019 one begins.
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