Don't Take Me Seriously - Book - Page 116
Rip Van Winkle’s 40th reunion
I
woke up last week from a long sleep,
only to realize that 40 years had passed
since my high school graduation. Forty years, or two-score years, or four freaking decades — it’s a period longer than the
Jim
WALKER
DON’T TAKE ME SERIOUSLY
average life expectancy in some parts of
the world.
And along with this shocking realization
came the comprehension that I had very
little to show for those 40 years and, worse
yet, I didn’t remember them. I felt like Rip
Van Winkle must have when he awoke after 20 years — you know, only twice as
stiff.
However, unlike old Rip, who liked
things the way he found them after all
that time, I felt, well, that I’d been cheated.
Sure I have a trunk full of photos to reminisce over, and eight large boxes of old
files to shred, but … somehow … these
mile markers of life don’t seem real. It’s
as if someone planted memories in my
head of things I never experienced. Forty years could not have passed that quickly. No way.
And, last weekend, as I wandered in my
surreal new state of consciousness, I happened upon about 60 old people suffering
with the same confusing condition — at
my 40th high school reunion.
And there, as we shook hands or hugged
or drank heavily, each rheumy, tearful eye
asked the same question:
“How the hell did this happen?”
See WALKER, A9
