The Reunion - Part One

The three of us were in the same third grade class at Templeton Elementary School: Mrs. Hatfield's.

Jasmine and I noticed one morning that we had the same pair of K-mart black corduroy slip-on shoes on our feet. From across the classroom, we made eye contact, pointed at our shared fashion-forward statements, grinned, and one of us mouthed to the other, "Want to play at recess?!?" What followed was the blossoming of a tried and true friendship that included sleepovers, "scary" movies (Young Frankenstein, Clue, and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein may not be found in the Horror section, but Psycho sure scared the bajeezus out of us), pool days, creating and performing plays and dance numbers, wearing our faded TES shirts and black pants on Fridays as we stood in line for our once-a-week Hot Lunch (burgers and fries with chocolate milk), binder organizing nights, mystery parties, the Older Sisters of Little Brothers Club, borderline certifiably insane boy-craziness, and our very own secret meeting place: Terabithia (a tree at the edge of Jasmine's property). Jasmine was an incredible dancer, and despite my own hesitation to become involved in a practice-every-day-of-the-week activity just yet, she took it upon herself to teach me some moves and choreograph routines that I could actually handle.

Erin and I shared our third-grade crush: Roy. This may have made us rivals of sorts at first, but I think we were ahead of our time, letting no man come between us strong, independent women. Many recesses were spent together (with Jasmine) sitting on the school's front lawn, where the old bell sat tempting countless eleven-and-unders to slip their hand under its dome and "discreetly" bang away on it before a yard duty could blow her screeching whistle at them. We spent time picking the red berries off the bushes in front of the office, and most likely talking about Roy's beautiful brown eyes. I remember lounging in Erin's bedroom, stroking her fluffy red cat, Sally, and making calls on her fabulous juicy-red-lip shaped telephone. Erin's dad reminded me of my own: a super cool rockstar with a goofy sense of humor, who had an enviable relationship with his daddy's girl. One night he showed me his record album of Alice Cooper and unknowingly introduced me to the mystery of guy-liner.

The eight-year-olds who became friends in third grade slowly but surely grew into adolescents. Berry picking and binder organizing transitioned into shopping trips to San Luis and lunches at Fresh Choice. Simple crushes were remodeled into infatuations-of-the-week and covert missions as we stalked boys around the gym each time a school dance was put on. Gone were the innocent days of being young girls, only to be replaced by the horror of cliques, glasses, braces, leg-shaving, self-chopped bangs, and more drama than we ever thought possible. Somehow we survived, and our friendships were still in tact. Bonus!

Finally, we entered high school, where the beginning stages of figuring out who we were began. At our small school, we all remained friends, while preserving other friendships we'd enjoyed since our elementary days, and accumulating new ones to add to our directory... depending on what activities we involved ourselves in and what classes we took. Many of my new friends were on my sports teams, but this didn't detract from my loyalties. Plenty of weekends were still spent at Jasmine's house, confiding anything and everything to each other, and I would forever have respect for Erin because of her amazingly sarcastic/genius sense of humor (my favorite) and the fact that she never compromised who she was just to be "cool".

Plenty of people who graduated from Templeton High School have a catch phrase: "Templeton's so small, we don't really have cliques."

Well... if "sporty", "brainy", "artsy", "druggie", and "girls-who-think-they're-better-than-everyone-else" sound like cliques to you, then THS had cliques. Lucky for most of us, the size of our class did make it easier to cross the barriers, and most students were identified with more than one of those groups. We'd all known each other for so long that we could still conduct decent, civil conversations with the Others. To say there were no cliques at all would be far too naive, though. I'm sure there are plenty of individuals from the class of 2000 out there who would consider their time in high school a special kind of hell.

Jasmine, Erin, and I considered ourselves "drifters", meaning we had cohorts in several different areas and got along just fine with all of them. The only one we avoided were the girls-who-think-they're-better-than-everyone-else. We simply mocked them behind their backs (some things never change... more on that in a later post: Class of 2000 Ten-Year Reunion suckas!!!)

The time came for everyone to go their separate ways. Our class was the first in a long while to have a high percentage of graduates to not only attend college, but go off in various directions. As is common, we lost close touch with those we had been closest to for so many years. New towns, new living arrangements, new roommates, new friends, new boys, and new lifestyles were distractions that made keeping up with our oldest friends more difficult than ever imagined. Occasional e-mails, even less frequent phone calls, and short visits during school breaks spent at home were opportunities to stay connected that grew fewer and farther apart every year. Eventually it happened: precious friendships had morphed into disconnected acquaintances.

Along came Facebook.