We thought you might enjoy a few laughs or bits of wisdom while waiting for the remaining years, months, weeks, or days to pass until the next EHS Class of 1967 reunion. Perhaps you have some suitable reunion (or graduation) jokes or stories of your own you'd be willing to post here, with or without identifying yourself. If so, please e-mail them to us and they'll be added to the page.

Please note that we cannot post anything here that may be considered offensive, salacious, or overly risqué. First, we do not want to embarrass ourselves into seclusion or drive away any of our classmates. Second, this website is accessible by anyone in the world, including our spouses, children, grandchildren, mothers, old flames, aunts, uncles, third cousins, the Department of State, NSA, CIA, FBI, and members of Congress. Well, you get the picture. We have links to our site posted on the Everett Public Schools websites, Wikipedia, and many other places. In fact, anyone looking for Everett High School on Google or other major Internet search engines will eventually find this website. Thank you!

Contents

Flashback . . . Everett, Washington in 1967

Black & White

Close Call

Boomer Nuggets

Reunion Do's and Don'ts

Class Reunion Hair Rules

Why Aging Isn't So Bad . . .

Then and Now . . .

Life's Truths

Aging Gracefully (Or Not) . . .

The Bald and the Beautiful

Reunion With A High School Classmate

High School Reunion

The Value of Education, or Things I Lerned in Publick Skule
Class Reunion

Garrison Keillor's Baccalaureate Speech, Princeton University
Sanity Trumps Vanity At 50th Class Reunion

The Turn Toward (Age) 55

Guy Noir

People Weren't Subtle in Jr. High School

Once In A Lifetime (Lyrics) - Talking Heads

Flashback . . . Everett, Washington in 1967

Where the women are strong,

The men are good looking,

And all the children are above average.

                        Garrison Keillor

Where the stoplights are green,

The sun shines most of the time,

And the apples are always ripe.

                        Anonymous Alumnus

And men, remember,

If the women don't find you handsome,

They should at least find you handy.

I'm pulling for you,

We're all in this together.

I'm a man,
but I can change,
if I have to,
I guess.
 

Quando omni flunkus moritati
Transl. "If all else fails, play dead."

                        Red Green

Black & White

by Anonymous Alumnus

You could hardly see for all the snow,

Spread the rabbit ears as far as they go.

Pull a chair up to the TV set,

"Good Night, David. Good Night, Chet."

My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning.

My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw sometimes, too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag, not in icepack coolers, but I can't remember getting e.coli or salmonella.

Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring). No beach closures then.

The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager was the school PA system.

We all took gym, not PE, and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top Keds (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now.

Flunking gym was not an option... even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much harder than gym.

Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national anthem, and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention.

We must have had horribly damaged psyches. What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.

I thought I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be proud of myself.

I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box and 270 digital TV cable stations.

Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed!

We played 'king of the hill' on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites, and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent bottle of Mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got our butts spanked.

Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle of antibiotics, and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we got our butts spanked there and then we got butt-spanked again when we got home.

I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the front stoop, just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she could have owned our house. Instead, she picked him up and swatted him for being such a goof. It was a neighborhood run amuck.

To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from a dysfunctional family. How could we possibly have known that?

Boomer Nuggets

We're aging disgracefully, and proud of it.

          KZOK, Classic Rock, FM 102.5, Seattle

War Story:  I was in a war. Oh yeah, the big one: the Gasoline Price War of '69. I had lied about my age so I could get a job pumping gas at a Lloyd's Texaco. Then all "shell" broke loose. The Dutchman dropped his price by a nickel. We had to fight back, so we took the big hit and dropped our price down six cents. The war was on. Why, we started handing out hot dogs and balloons just to keep the customers. By the end of August, the entire station was under siege: people parking their cars outside, firing off their horns, screaming for free tumblers and nobody to hold them off except me and one-legged Lloyd. But we did it, and we won, and it made a man out of me. And I guess that explains the stain on my pants.

          Red Green

It was long ago, and far away . . . And it was so much better than it is today . . .

          Meat Loaf, Paradise by the Dashboard Light, Bat Out of Hell

Now that I'm older, here's what I've discovered:

1. I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it.
    
2. My wild oats have turned into prunes and all bran.
    
3. I finally got my head together; now my body is falling apart.
    
4. Funny, I don't remember being absent minded....
    
5. All reports are in; Life is now officially unfair.
    
6. If all is not lost, where is it.
    
7. It is easier to get older than it is to get wiser.
    
8. Some days you're the dog; some days you're the hydrant.
    
9. I wish the buck stopped here; I sure could use a few.
    
10. Kids in the back seat cause accidents.
     
11. Accidents in the back seat cause...kids.
     
12. It's hard to make a comeback when you haven't been anywhere.
     
13. Only time the world beats a path to your door is when you're in the bathroom.
     
14. If God wanted me to touch my toes, he would have put then on my knees.
     
15. It's not hard to meet expenses...they're everywhere.
     
16. The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.
     
17. These days, I spend a lot of time thinking about the hereafter...I go somewhere to get something, and then wonder what I'm hereafter.

0

Reunion Do's and Don'ts

by Anonymous Alumnus

Don't take it personally if some former classmates appear to blow off your attempt to reach out during reunion planning efforts. As during your school days, some are self-conscious or shy, and may need gentle coaxing. Some are momentarily consumed by life's challenges and are unable to come forward. For others, perhaps high school was not a particularly enjoyable time in their lives. A few may be philosophically or religiously opposed to a reunion. Of course, some of your classmates are simply lazy. No matter what, a small number may actively avoid contact, wanting to leave the past in the past. Therefore, for a variety of reasons, some individuals will likely never show up at your reunion, and others will, but only after remaining silent or unavailable during the months leading up to it. In all cases, the best you can do is offer your classmates the opportunity to engage, and respect their decision. If they ultimately decline, let it go and don't worry about it. After all, what fun would it be if people at your reunion didn't really want to be there? Focus instead on those who truly want to visit old friends, talk, and briefly share some fond memories -- then help them realize that goal.

Don't assume the people who seemed least likely to succeed have become failures, or vice-versa. While most of us desperately wanted to grow up fast, we were still children in those days, and under the care of parents or guardians. Like most children, we had little real control over our circumstances or eventual destinies. That thug who was always getting into fights may now be a cop or a clergyman. That guy who always cut classes is now a lawyer or a business executive. Maybe that handsome former athlete is now an unemployed roadie, or the Prom Queen is now on her twelfth marriage. And don't be surprised if that girl who always wore too much makeup and looked kind of slutty, still wears too much makeup and looks kind of slutty, but now's she's a pediatrician or a publisher. In short, high school social status is a woefully poor predictor of life's success, failure or happiness.

Don't cover up your photo nametag and go up to people and say, "Remember me?" Several people did this at my reunion, and all it did was create an uncomfortable moment. I had no idea who they were, and then they were insulted. Finally, I came up with an answer: "Remember you? Are you kidding? You're all I've thought of since high school." Then they'd reveal their ID, and I realized why I hadn't recognized them. They didn't resemble their high school photo in any way — except perhaps being of the same species.

Don't count on romance. Some people go to their reunion, hoping that the person they always had a crush on will still look great, happen to be single, and finally realize that they were meant for each other. If you're going to travel thousands of miles hoping this will come true, you should know that it's possible, but you're a lot more likely to have the airlines lose your luggage.

Don't say stupid things. If you ask someone, "Whatever happened to that creepy guy you were dating?" a guaranteed reply is, "I married him." You should also avoid, "Did you meet any nice people in jail?" And no matter how much you're tempted, don't go up to that person you went out with once and say, "I'm a much better kisser now. Really, I am."

Don't pass out your resume or open your sample case. These people are your classmates, not potential customers. However, at my reunion, one guy found a way to tell about what he did rather inoffensively. He said he was an inventor in the reunion book, and each of us received one of his inventions: it's a little light that illuminates your sock drawer, so you can get dressed in the dark and not put on mismatched socks. By giving these away, he demonstrated that he really was an inventor. He also revealed that he spends way too much time thinking about sock drawers.

Do ask your classmates' permission before sharing any of their personal contact information with other alumni. Under no circumstances should any nonessential personal contact information be posted on the Internet, even for reunion planning purposes.

Do realize that upon entering the reunion, everyone is having the same thought you are: "How did everyone else get so old?" Just know there is a 20- or 30-something-year-old mind trapped inside every EHS 1967 Alumni body. All you have to do is talk to them and that mind will likely reveal itself to you.

Do resume old friendships without blaming each other for not calling or writing. You'll be amazed at how quickly you'll feel comfortable with old friends.

Do talk to people you didn't know very well in high school. You may find they're having an interesting life and end up with a new friend.

Do be a little suspicious about attire. Unless it is specifically stated otherwise on the invitation, just dress comfortably. These are not people you need to impress by wearing fancy clothes. However, if you ask an old friend ahead of time what everybody's going to wear, he's probably putting you on if he says, "the reunion is clothing optional."

Do, above all else, have a good time and enjoy the company of your old classmates.

Class Reunion Hair Rules

Forget the diet, forget the Botox. The key to having a successful, even a triumphant reunion, is hair.

If you're a man who still has a full head of hair, you will be a hit even if you are unemployed and have cold sores. If you happen to be bald, be proud of your baldness. Convey the attitude that, "I look great bald, and if you don't think so, you're just wrong." Do not cover up your baldness by wearing one of those things that looks like road kill. For women (and some men) who dye their hair, it's important that the color you choose at least resemble some color that is found in nature.

Why Aging Isn't So Bad . . .

Then and Now . . .

Now: Weed Killer

Then: Being caught with Hustler magazine

Now: Being caught by Hustler magazine

Then: Working for a BMW

Now: Working to lower your BMI (body mass index)

Then: The Grateful Dead

Now: Dr. Kevorkian

Then: Getting out to a new, hip joint

Now: Getting a new hip joint

Then: Moving to California because it's cool

Now: Moving to California because it's warm

Then: Being called into the principal's office

Now: Storming into the principal's office

Then: Peace Sign

Now: Mercedes Logo

Then: OJ, cutting & slashing

Now: OJ, cutting & slashing

Then: Getting your head stoned

Now: Getting your headstone

Then: "The Making of the President"

Now: The making of the President

Then: "Going blind"

Now: REALLY going blind

Then: Long hair

Now: Longing for hair

Then: Our president's struggle with Fidel

Now: Our president's struggle with fidelity

Then: "Off the pigs"

Now: "No bacon please, I'm watching my cholesterol."

Then: Virility, agility, vanity

Now:  Senility, obesity, humility

Then: Making a gun rack in Jr. High woodshop

Now: Kicked out of school for mentioning a gun rack

Then: Big tobacco argued no proof smoking causes cancer

Now: Argue cancer from smoking is smokers' fault

Then: Acid rock

Now: Acid reflux

Then: Worrying about no one coming to your party

Now: Worrying about no one coming to your funeral

Then: President Johnson

Now: The President's johnson

Then: Fighting to get rid of the lying President

Now: Fighting to keep the lying President

Then: The perfect high

Now: The perfect high mutual fund

Then: Elvis in the army

Now: Elvis in a UFO

Then: Libido

Now: Lumbar

Then: Keg

Now: EKG

Then: Swallowing acid

Now: Swallowing antacid

Then: You're growing pot

Now: Your growing pot

Then: Watching John Glenn's historic flight with your parents

Now: Watching John Glenn's historic flight with your grandkids

Then: Trying to look like Marlon Brando or Elizabeth Taylor

Now: Trying not to look like Marlon Brando or Elizabeth Taylor

Then: Passing the driving test

Now: Passing the vision test

Then: Seeds and Stems

Now: Roughage

Then: Popping pills, smoking joints

Now: Popping joints

Then: Whatever?

Now: Depends

Then: Breakfast cereal brands advertised "sugar"

Now: Sugar is still there, but is now hidden from moms

  Great Truths About Life That Little Children Have Learned

  Great Truths About Life That Adults Have Learned

Aging Gracefully (Or Not) . . .

Maybe it's true that life begins at fifty. But everything else starts to wear out, fall out, or spread out.

There are three signs of old age. The first is your loss of memory, the other two I forget.

You're getting old when you don't care where your spouse goes, just as long as you don't have to go along.

Middle age is when work is a lot less fun - and fun a lot more work.

Statistics show that at the age of seventy, there are five women to every man. Isn't that the darndest time for a guy to get those odds?

You know all the answers but nobody asks you any questions.

You get winded playing checkers.

You need a fire permit to light all of your birthday candles and you need oxygen after blowing them out.

You order Geritol 'on the rocks.'

You sink your teeth into a thick steak and they stay there.

You stop to think and sometimes you forget to start again.

You don't need an alarm clock to get up with the chickens.

Your pacemaker opens the garage door whenever a cute girl goes by.

The only whistles you get are from a tea kettle.

A fortune teller wants to read your face.

You finally get it all together, but can't remember where you put it.

You pray for a good prune-juice harvest.

Everything hurts. And what doesn't hurt, doesn't work.

You feel like the morning after, and you haven't been anywhere.

Your little black book contains only names ending with M.D.

You look forward to a dull evening.

You join a health club and never go.

You need your glasses to find your glasses.

You sit in a rocking chair and can't get it going.

Your knees buckle, but your belt won't.

You have too much room in the house, and not enough in the medicine cabinet.

YOU WONDER WHY MORE PEOPLE DON'T USE THIS SIZE PRINT.

The Bald and the Beautiful

What surprised me most about going to my high school reunion was how good the women looked while so many of the men showed their age. After hearing the same observation repeated by others returning from their school reunions, I grew suspicious.

The wrinkle fairy does not discriminate between genders. Nor does the patron saint of thickened waistlines. For every balding, potbellied man on the street there is an age-marked female counterpart. What I realized when I applied myself to the conundrum of the reunion is that most of the women who don't look good don't go, whereas the men aren't aware of whether they look good or not. Thus, we walk away with the illusion that the men have aged, while the women, magically, have been preserved in all their youthful glory. For a female en route to meet her classmates of yesteryear, looking good is the best revenge, especially if she hadn't yet come into her own when those pert, blond cheerleaders were at their peak. There can be tremendous satisfaction in knowing that you've ripened rather than gone to seed.

If a middle-aged man does catch sight of himself in a full-length mirror or shop window, he's 99.9 percent sure to suck in his gut in a panic of optimism, sigh ever so softly, and then turn away. He doesn't dwell on the shock or disappointment of reality's report card. He doesn't go out and buy expensive cosmetics or vow to start wearing sunscreen every day. He's able to shake off the vision and go back to thinking of himself as once again possessed of an 18-year-old's body and skin.

A woman, on the other hand, has better than 20/20 vision when it comes to reality in all its fabulous detail. She cannot ignore an overflowing wastebasket or a sink full of dirty dishes, the fact that her child's diaper has absorbed as much pee as it possibly can, or the bit of rice pilaf that manages to stick, through the entire dessert course, on the Velcro of her husband's jaw. Perhaps because of her enhanced powers of perception, she experiences life more richly and fully than her mate does. But he is not assaulted as she is at every turn by all the parts of life that need fixing. He can relax with ease whereas she can only relax when she is asleep, unconscious or dead.

I think I'd like to start acting more like a man in this regard. I want to go to my next reunion, if I go at all, in utter innocence, with no ax to grind and no point to prove. Let me be as surprised as a virgin having sex for the first time. And then let me put my shattered illusions on a shelf deep inside me, where they can be woven over with the webs of memory and imagination.

Reunion With A High School Classmate

by Anonymous Alumna

Have you been guilty of looking at others your own age and thinking...surely I cannot look that old? You may enjoy this short story, which could be true....

While waiting for my first appointment in the reception room of a new dentist, I noticed his certificate, which bore his full name. Suddenly, I remembered that a tall, handsome boy with the same name had been in my high school class some 40 years ago. Upon seeing him, however, I quickly discarded any such thought. This balding, gray-haired man with the deeply lined face was way too old to have been my classmate.

After he had examined my teeth, I asked him if he had attended the local high school. "Yes," he replied. "When did you graduate?" I asked. He answered, "In 1967. Why?" "You were in my class!" I exclaimed. He looked at me closely and then asked, "What did you teach?"

High School Reunion

by Anonymous Alumna

My high school reunion! When I received the invitation I thought it would be fun. I could see all the kids I used to know "way back when," find out what ever happened to so-and-so. It’s been years since I graduated. I’ve never been back to a reunion in the past, always too busy having babies, moving from one side of the country to the other, or in the middle of some other life activity. I went to high school in another city, another state. This is a true story of how things happened. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent from what I’m gonna say.

With much trepidation, I was off to the big reunion weekend. The first planned event was a reception – okay a happy hour, at a local restaurant. I knew where the restaurant was, right across from the high school – I thought. 

When I drove up, however, the restaurant had magically changed into an Auto Zone store. "Where’s Harvey’s?" I had to ask for directions. "Oh, it’s down by the bowling alley, near the racetrack." Racetrack? What racetrack? I don’t remember any racetrack. Anyhow, I finally found it. Seems it moved years ago. Why didn’t they just say Jerry’s Restaurant is now Harvey’s Restaurant? 

I wandered around the bar for a while trying to recognize people and introducing myself. I didn’t remember them and they didn’t remember me. We smiled and pretended to know each other, no one wanting to admit their senility. My God, I thought, they are all so OLD!

Then I finally spotted someone I knew. She used to be a cheerleader, I think. Fat! She was FAT! How could she do this to us? It was awful! 

Backing away, I thought I recognized somebody at the bar. "Are you Tony?" I asked. "Sure, who else," he replied, pointing to his curly hair. Well, at least he still had hair. He was on the football team and never had the time of day for me in school. He quickly blew me off, as usual. I was thrilled! I knew it! People never change, I thought - except they are all so OLD!

The new school does not have a library; it has a computer-learning lab. Computers everywhere. No wonder kids are so smart nowadays. It was sure completely different from the high school days I remember. "We don’t buy encyclopedias," said the principal. "The kids do their research on the Internet."

The school tour is where I saw George – school stud, captain of the football team, heartthrob of all the girls. Life had been hard on him. He was an ancient, wrinkled old man now. I was secretly a bit happy that he looked so bad. George actually came up and said hello and pretended he remembered me. Jerk! I remembered him too! Oh, well, it’s been years. Who cares any more? Poor thing – he is so OLD!

Finally, the big event came, a dinner-dance. It was in a convention center that did not even exist when we were teenagers. I was wearing a sexy red dress and had been on a diet. I felt like I looked pretty good. In my heart I’m still 18, of course. 

We arrived late, as usual, and could not sit with the new friends we made at the happy hour, so we sat at the nurses table. They all seemed to know each other from nursing school or the hospital or some place medical. We tried to talk to them and made polite conversation for a while. Finally, we gave up and decided just to dance, have a good time and forget ‘em.

Tony caught me in the lobby and tried to make amends for blowing me off earlier at the restaurant. "I was thinking that do I remember you," he said, calling me by the wrong name. Wonder if he saw me driving my Vette when I left the restaurant the other night, I thought.

I’ll never come to another one of these things! It’s like being dead and waking up in senior citizen hell. I’ve lived my whole life without ‘em, so who needs them now? 

They are all so FAT, I thought, and so OLD!

The Value of Education, or

Things I Lerned in Publick Skule

Chemistry class:

1. Water is composed of two gins.  Oxygen and hydrogen.  Oxygen is pure gin. Hydrogen is gin and water.
2. (Define H2O and CO2) H2O is hot water and CO2 is cold water.

Health and Biology classes:

1. A virgin forest is a forest where the hand of man has never set foot.
2. The spinal column is a  long bunch of bones.  The head sits on the top and you sit on the bottom.
3. We do not raise silk worms in the United States, because we get our silk from rayon.  He is a larger worm and gives more silk.
4. One by-product of raising cattle is calves.
5. The blood circulates through the body by flowing down one leg and up the other.
6. In spring, the salmon swim upstream to spoon.
7. A city purifies its water supply by filtering the water then forcing it through an aviator.
8. The main cause of dust is janitors.

English class:

1. The parts of speech are lungs and air.
2. The word trousers is an uncommon noun because it is singular at the top and plural at the bottom.
3. Syntax is all the money collected at the church from sinners.

Geography and History:

1. A census taker is a man who goes from house to house increasing the population.
2. The general direction of the Alps is straight up.
3. Most of the houses in France are made of plaster of Paris.
4. The four seasons are salt, pepper, mustard, and vinegar.
5. Oliver Cromwell had a large red nose, but under it were deeply religious feelings.
6. The inhabitants of Moscow are called Mosquitoes.
7. Iron was discovered because someone smelt it.
8. Magellan was the first navigator to circumscribe the world.

Civics:

1. A scout obeys all to whom obedience is due and respects all dully constipated authorities.

Class Reunion

by Anonymous Alumna

I had prepared for it like any intelligent woman would. I went on a starvation diet the day before, knowing that all the extra weight would just melt off in 24-hours, leaving me with my sleek, trim, high-school-girl body. The last many years of careful cellulite collection would just be gone with a snap of a finger. I knew if I didn't eat a morsel on Friday, that I could probably fit into my senior formal on Saturday.

Trotting up to the attic, I pulled the gown out of the garment bag, carried it lovingly downstairs, ran my hand over the fabric, and hung it on the door. I stripped naked, looked in the mirror, sighed, and thought, "Well, okay, maybe if I shift it all to the back ...;" bodies never have pockets where you need them.

Bravely, I took the gown off the hanger, unzipped the shimmering dress and stepped gingerly into it. I struggled, twisted, turned, and pulled and I got the formal all the way up to my knees ... before the zipper gave out. I was disappointed. I wanted to wear that dress with those silver platform sandals again and dance the night away.

Okay, one setback was not going to spoil my mood for this affair. No way! Rolling the dress into a ball and tossing it into the corner, I turned to Plan B ... the black velvet caftan. I gathered up all the goodies that I had purchased at the drug store; the scented shower gel; the body building, and highlighting shampoo & conditioner, and the split-end killer and shine enhancer. Soon my hair would look like that girl's in the Pantene ads.

Then the makeup -- the under eye "ain't no lines here" firming cream, the all-day face-lifting gravity-fighting moisturizer with wrinkle filler spackle; the all day "kiss me till my lips bleed, and see if this gloss will come off" lipstick, the bronzing face powder for that special glow ... But first, the roll-on facial hair remover. I could feel the wrinkles shuddering in fear.

OK - time to get ready. I jumped into the steaming shower, soaped, lathered, rinsed, shaved, tweezed, buffed, scrubbed, and scoured my body to a tingling pink. I plastered my freshly scrubbed face with the anti-wrinkle, gravity fighting, "your face will look like a baby's butt" face cream. I set my hair on the hot rollers. I felt wonderful. Ready to take on the world. Or in this instance, my underwear. With the towel firmly wrapped around my glistening body, I pulled out the black lace, tummy-tucking, cellulite-pushing, ham hock-rounding girdle, and the matching "lifting those bosoms like they're filled with helium" bra.

I greased my body with the scented body lotion and began the plunge. I pulled, stretched, tugged, hiked, folded, tucked, twisted, shimmied, hopped, pushed, wiggled, snapped, shook, caterpillar crawled, and kicked. Sweat poured off my forehead but I was done. And it didn't look bad. So I rested. A well deserved rest, too. The girdle was on my body.

Bounce a quarter off my behind? It was tighter than a trampoline. Can you say, "Rubber baby buggy bumper butt?" Okay, so I had to take baby steps, and walk sideways, and I couldn't move from my butt cheeks to my knees. But I was firm! Oh no ... I had to go to the bathroom. And there wasn't a snap crotch. From now on, undies gotta have a snap crotch. I was ready to rip it open and re-stitch the crotch with Velcro, but the pain factor from past experiments was still fresh in my mind. I quickly side stepped to the bathroom. An hour later, I had answered nature's call and repeated the struggle into the girdle.

I was ready for the bra. I remembered what the saleslady said to do. I could see her glossed lips mouthing, "Do not fasten the bra in the front, and twist it around. Put the bra on the way it should be worn -- straps over the shoulders. Then bend over and gently place both breasts inside the cups." Easy if you have four hands. But, with confidence, I put my arms into the holsters, bent over and pulled the bra down ... but the boobs weren't cooperating. I'd no sooner tuck one in a cup, and while placing the other, the first would slip out.

I needed a strategy. I bounced up and down a few times, tried to dribble them in with short bunny hops, but that didn't work. So, while bent over, I began rocking gently back and forth on my heel and toes and I set 'em to swinging. Finally, on the fourth swing, pause, and lift, I captured the gliding glands. Quickly fastening the back of the bra, I stood up for examination. Back straight, slightly arched, I turned and faced the mirror, turning front, and then sideways. I smiled. Yes, Houston, we have lift up! My breasts were high, firm and there was cleavage! I was happy until I tried to look down. I had a chin rest. And I couldn't see my feet. I still had to put on my pantyhose, and shoes. Then I had to pee again.

I put on my sweats, fixed myself a drink, ordered pizza, and skipped the reunion.

GARRISON KEILLOR’S BACCALAUREATE SPEECH

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

Unofficial Transcript (August 7, 2001)

It’s good to be here on this perfect day in the company of a lot of very smart people and the folks who brought them up and from whom they inherited their good looks and a good deal of their intelligence.  It’s a great honor to come and speak at your Baccalaureate, especially as I know that Princeton does not invite many comedians to do this.  Princeton probably has enough experience with comedy among incoming freshmen to know not to give one of those people a microphone at a solemn and dignified event.  Most colleges prefer a standard commencement speaker who is eminent in a sort of vague statesman-like way so that nobody is particularly mad at him and who will talk about the commitment to excellence.  But the message of a comedian is closer to that of the Gospels that down deep life is a mess, but it’s a beautiful mess if you don’t take yourself too seriously, which you shouldn’t because we’re not so different as we pretend to be.

 There is a lot of human nature in everybody.  I learned this in church.  I didn’t grow up attending inter-faith services like this one, in which you have readings from different religious traditions and in which you sing hymns about the fields and the forests.  I grew up in a church where they painted vivid pictures of the jaws of hell opening up and swallowing you for your sins and where the preacher did not stand up on this high rostrum but walked up and down the aisles looking for converts and shaking his Bible at them.  These were the people who put the “fun” into Fundamentalism.  And we boys were always made to sit down front where we could get the full impact of him.

 It was the summer and the goldenrod was heavy in the air as was the ragweed, and I was becoming emotional over that and the preacher saw me weeping and he said, “Here’s one who’s under conviction of sin, right down here.”  And he came for me.  I remember his shirt was wet, and his hair was pasted to his head.  He reached out his hand and I took it, and he pulled me towards him, and I tripped and I fell into his arms.  And when I came into his arms I could smell the whiskey on his breath.  It was an amazing discovery for a boy at the age of 12, to realize that the preacher himself had his own contradictions and today was not one of his winning days but he was still in the game.  He held me close to him, and he prayed to God that I would be spared punishment for my sins.  To have a drunken man pray for your soul is a mysterious privilege that a person never, ever forgets.  All of the good people sitting in back were not aware of this, but he was a sinner too and that’s what gave him the authority to preach.  And the man who speaks passionately about the pursuit of excellence is a man who is deeply aware of his own mediocrity.

 I am in the field of comedy, the same as most of you, and in our field, excellence is an illusive quality.  There are no long-term goals.  You’re only trying to have some immediate effect on the situation.  I got into comedy when I was a kid.  I was one of those really quiet kids.  They weren’t sure if I was an introspective genius or if I was hard of hearing.  And one day I was sitting in the school cafeteria across the table from our class intellect, Leonard Larson, the guy who always corrected you if you mispronounced words.  The guy who was committed to excellence, at least on the part of others.  He was a tough critic who made you pay a big price for a mistake.  He came from parents who had gone to college, so he picked up a big vocabulary around the dinner table and also a very nice set of handy opinions about things.  I had a large vocabulary that I got from reading books, so I was never quite sure about pronunciation.  “Epitome,” for example, was a word I didn’t use for years.  Or “suave” or “hors d'oeuvres,” “charisma,” or “inchoate.”  I sat across from Leonard as he ate his tapioca pudding and I told him a stupid joke, one that involved mucus and yet, as dumb as it was, the timing was perfect.  He was just swallowing when it hit him and I made Leonard Larson, our class intellect, exhale tapioca through both nostrils.  I have never had this effect on anyone before.  And it was a big experience to see a great intellect turn red and yak up tapioca.  Two long noodles of it, I thought he was going to blow his entire lunch.  I was thinking cerebral hemorrhage and to me, at that point, comedy started to seem like a noble thing.  Destructive, yes.  Humiliating, yes, but not in a bad way.  A good line of work for somebody who is not that smart.

A writer doesn’t have to be smart, as long as he knows to steal from the right people.  Like Mark Twain -- you steal from him long enough and people will start comparing you to him.  So… I’m not the one to talk to you about the pursuit of excellence.  Obviously you’ve done that already.  I’m here to offer an alternative.  I think you should all go out and have a beautiful life that includes adventure and romance and some failure and some misery and certainly some remorse.  And have this beautiful life without regard to how it measures up to other people’s adventures and romances and their miseries and their remorse.

I live in St. Paul, Minnesota, and, as President Shapiro said, that is the hometown of F. Scott Fitzgerald and in St. Paul when we think of Princeton, we think of Fitzgerald.  My house is in his old neighborhood.  And in the spring we get a certain number of high school students who are wandering around looking for his place, who have read the Great Gatsby in English and were moved by it.  The novel is 75 years old, but Fitzgerald managed to get down on paper a certain kind of pure yearning that high school readers recognize as their own.  Some of these high school students ask me if I knew Fitzgerald myself and I tell them, only slightly.  We went to different schools.  But every day on my walk I pass a big frame house on Summit Avenue with a veranda on two sides of it that used to belong to a woman named Porterfield who ran it as a boarding house.  And in the summer of 1919 Fitzgerald, at the age of 23, liked to sit on that veranda with his friends, John Briggs and Don Stewart, and smoke and talk about the novel he was writing and the girl in Montgomery, Alabama, whom he hoped to marry.

He had gone off to Princeton with a beautiful picture in his mind of a gothic campus and himself as a campus hero, winning all of the prizes.  He spent much of his time at Princeton coughing [GK is coughing, had water and continues coughing].  He was slightly tubercular, as I am, but he spent his time writing for the Triangle Club and acting in their shows and his grades were poor and he had to leave school.  He enlisted in the army hoping to go to Europe and get in the war and redeem himself.  But the war ended before he could.  His novel had been turned down twice, and the girl had broken off the engagement.  He was living in a tiny third-floor apartment with his parents in St. Paul with his alcoholic father and his spooky mother.  And he spent every day in a little room where he had pinned the chapters of his novel to the curtains and where he was busy writing new material and cutting out big swaths of other material and reshaping the whole thing.  Everyone knows how this story turned out, how the novel was published, and the girl married him, and he became a famous writer of the twenties.  But when I think of Fitzgerald I like to think of him sitting on that veranda, at the age 23, a Princeton dropout, so broke he had to borrow pocket money from his friends and yet so full of courage and passion with an indomitable spirit, looking forward to the next day and the next month and the years to come and all of the love and glory in the world that he knew would be his.  The spirit of youth which is so palpable here in this room. 

Dear graduates, I am not one of those Baccalaureate orators who takes you down a series of rhetorical corridors called “dare to dream” or “the commitment to quality,” meanwhile your brains are taking a short holiday and then you go to the parking lot and you find the Chevy and you think, quality, okay, but what am I going to do for revenue?  Oh brave young navigators, setting your course toward tomorrow, speak kindly to your parents and perhaps you could borrow two or three grand and have yourself a beautiful summer, lighting candles against the darkness and marching to a different drummer – in Madrid, Paris, St. Petersburg, Machu Picchu, learning what the open road has to teach you and enjoying one last, innocent, romantic journey before becoming internists or patent attorneys, so that when you’re my age, what we call pre-senility, you would remember that summer of glorious irresponsibility and the music and voices and the sights and the smells of barrooms and city parks and cheap hotels, and your peregrinations, pedestrian and vehicular, and beautiful people you’ve met, and the one person in particular who made your heart pound that night along the Seine as you kissed as you might never, ever kiss again, but then you kissed again and then one thing led to another and you had an experience you won’t share with your father and mother.

Use common sense, yes, but press on for love and glory.  Today’s grievous mistake is tomorrow’s humorous story.  Don’t grow old as a person whose memoirs will consist of stories from the TV shows you never missed.  Live your life, so as your last days come nigh, your adventures are the envy of other alumni.

We can’t all be Aristotle or St. Thomas or Erasmus or Socrates.  Some of us due to the law of averages might be Mediocrities.  But we can all live boldly with great esprit and panache and sometimes throw whites and colored into the same wash, or buy the expensive wine, the kind with corks, never mind the cost.  And walk into strange cities and have the good sense to get lost.  Oh you are brave, and there is no other choice but courage.  What choice has the flower but to blossom? Who would celebrate and honor you?  Oh, I would.  I would raise a monument made of Christmas lights and all the pennants and plywood.  Even if I met you as a delivery person for Ray’s Original Pizza, I’d be impressed, like when “A body meets a body coming through the Rye,” or coming through the trees.  You can recognize quality even if it smells of onions and cheese.

I believe in impulse, in all that is green, believe in the foolish vision that comes out true.  Believe that all that is essential is unseen, and today, we all believe in you.  Whether rich or poor, sick or healthy, in whatever instance, in a place of your heart, you will always be Princetonians and that, my dears, is the whole story.  It was a pleasure to attend your Baccalaureate.  Thank you.

June 3, 2001

SANITY TRUMPS VANITY AT 50TH CLASS REUNION

At my 20th I was drunk and fit right in.

By my 30th I'd quit drinking. That proved to be a big mistake. Sober, straight, and wearing casual island garb - I'd just married Carolyn aboard a tall ship sailing into a Key West sunset - I stood out, a fashion faux pas among the Oxford suits and peau de soie gowns worn by conservative Park Ridge, Illinois' educated elite.

Perhaps my gold earring didn't help. Apparently, many of my classmates suspected that I was "coming out."

When I was awarded the statuette for "Most Recent Marriage," murmurs and giggles filled the room. Just exactly what did Frank marry?
 

I attempted small talk. Classmates froze in place, their eyes darting side-to-site, fearful others might notice them in full cavort with this…this ear-ringed, ill-clad smudge of mold loose in an otherwise perfect loaf of white bread. Freak photos were taken.

Classmate Dutch Von Boeselager spent much of the night shooting pictures of me, mumbling over and over, "Unbelievable! Unbelievable!" I left early, as disappointed with the Class of '53 as they were appalled by me. I swore I'd never go back.

Rewards of Age

By the time you're 67, you learn to never say never. Last month I attended my 50th reunion. My lame excuse? That it would be grist for a funny Suddenly Senior column.

Funny, but instead of a goofy "Golden Girl" comedy, the reunion more closely resembled a slice-of-life Proctor & Gamble soap commercial, all smiles and apple pie.

It was wonderful! For the Class of '53, sanity had finally trumped vanity. Of course, I recognized no one.

Between aging and the blurring of memory, I could have been at a casting call for the movie "Cocoon." And either some had aged more gracefully than others or there was a rare twenty-year span in our ages when we graduated. To a person, we secretly wondered what someone as young as our self was doing surrounded by all these old coots.

Suddenly Trivia: Which of the following was NOT popular in 1953? a) "The Doggie In the Window" by Patti Page, b) Philco TV Playhouse c) Pez, d) Ernest Borgnine in Marty

All of us, victims of time, gravity, and at least minor derelictions of youth, had become more forgiving, more congenial. More loving. Of the 463 in our graduating class, 58 were dead, 71 were "whereabouts unknown" and likely gone as well.

One had had a heart attack as she was leaving for the reunion. Others had literally dropped dead, one in the middle of Times Square.

Such food for thought filled us survivors with gratitude. What if we were a bit the worse for wear? We'd made it this far! No small accomplishment, that, even if much of it is the draw of the genes.

I wore my earring. No one said a word. No one stared. Old Dutch didn't even reach for his camera. He just smiled.

The Class of '53 had finally come of age.

Suddenly Trivia Answer: d) Ernest Borgnine won "Best Actor" award for his role in Marty in 1955. In 1953, First Class stamps were 3 cents, bread was 16 cents a loaf, and the average car cost $1,850. The DOW was at 281.

Once In A Lifetime

by The Talking Heads