The people who run the whole affair do their best to be prepared for such unscheduled events-the executive secretary, who does everything from tracking down mislaid children to re-introducing their parents, wouldn't dream of setting out for Essex without armloads of safety pins, suntan oil, and Kotex. But you can't foresee every contingency. Gosh, the unexpected is half the fun of reunions!
The reunion is full of sideshows and of the half of them that are actually prearranged, one of the best is this boat tour that leaves the docks of the Manchester Yacht Club under the direction of a number of neighborhood women. Ostensibly the tours, led by bossy old ladies with cutesy-tough names like Muggins and Bet, ostensibly introduce interested alumni to the fine homes that overlook the coastline's coves. But, as Muggins confided to her coworkers, "Hah, I don't waste my time gushing on about all those old houses. I just let 'em all chew about their children- that's all they want to do anyway."
Not quite, Muggins. Some of the reunioners were on those boat rides for a quite different reason-namely, to escape their fellow spirits who crowded the playing fields of the Essex with an absolutely gleaming array of metal tennis rackets, assorted putters, and couture designer sporting outfits.
The day's single almost-emergency occurred when one such couple-you could tell that they just didn't cut it for they were not only from New Hampshire but had also been wearing the same clothes all day long -invited their bus driver onto the boat with them. By the time he returned, half his busload had already assembled and were impatiently demanding passage back to Essex. But the Losers had also gotten the bus driver drunk and so, when Mr. Loser boarded the boat for another swing around the harbor, Mrs. Loser led the bus driver off to the nearby sand dunes, leaving one of the chauffeurs to entertain her half-stewed teenage daughter. Meanwhile, the rest of the group suffered in the sun, as unsilently as possible, while back at the Country Club they began to serve up the evening's promised lobster.
Midway through the dance that was held the following night at the Sheraton Plaza, the classmates and their wives began drifting out of the main ballroom where some ragtime band was going into its 90th turn through "Hold That Tiger." Across the way, their college kids were having their dance and, before long, that was where it was, yes, at. For by Wednesday night, the crowd had really loosened up. Half the alumni daughters were dancing with porters they had picked up along the way. A good number of the wives were eyeing a few of the boys themselves. (After all, they had all seen The Graduate, even if it wasn't a very accurate picture of today's youth, Benjamin's Williams background notwithstanding.) And even a bunch of the men were out frugging-the last dance whose name they remembered-a little bit themselves.
And then suddenly, this corpulent type is ripping his dress shirt off his sweating body, and, hell, what's that he's got on? O my God, a strike T-shirt! This guy's out there dancing in his underwear with a big, red fist stencilled on his belly. And, you could hear the tempo quicken, and everyone gulp down another drink, and throw themselves into saving abandon.
Reunion etiquette is actually fairly simple. Just avoid unpleasant subjects and refer to your fellow alumnus as Classmate. At first, it carries an odd note of artificial formality. But then, everyone else does the same thing. Women talk to their sisters, and blacks to fellow brothers, and I even had a professor this semester who took to calling us all citizen to set things on a more equitable basis. Besides, if you're the type that just can't remember first names, it makes it all a helluva lot easier.
Just as alumni never fork over as much money to the University as the University hopes they will, we lackeys didn't rip-off the kinds of rewards we were looking for. But, the odd thing about it was that by the end of the whole siege it really didn't matter.
After the Sheraton Plaza dance, after we had ushered the last of the celebrants onto his bus (where everyone was singing Harvard fight songs), and after we had scoured the ballroom for forgotten handbags and gloves (discovering mostly lost shoes instead), the head chauffeur hugged the executive secretary and then they both looked at all the rest of us and shook their heads warmly and sadly. It was like straight out of one of Chekhov's final curtains, all the faithful family retainers standing around chuckling knowingly over the foolishness of their masters.
Of course, come morning, we'd laugh at them all once again. And husbands would fight with their tired wives, children holler, and everyone dozed off on champagne as they prepared to withdraw from town. But now, with two more years also gone from sight, it seems somehow more difficult to maintain the derisive laughter.
For, during those two years, we have suffered too many hangovers of our own. Some political, some not, and lately, a good many of them just plain old alcoholic. You almost begin to admire the simple tenacity that permits one to survive twenty-five years. So what if the Class of '44, with their station wagons, unmentioned divorces, second wives and four kids, are said, along with their other Harvard brothers, to rule the world. When you see them up close, you know they can't possibly be the guys who are really in charge.