A couple weekends ago I attended my 35th high school reunion. I know, I know. How can someone as young and virile as me have been in high school so long ago? The obvious answer is that I’m not as young and virile as I come across in retouched, graphically enhanced photos. You don’t get to be my age, and with a body like this, from sitting around eating tacos and drinking cheap beer. Wait. That might actually be the case. Maybe then the obvious answer is that you can look just like me if you have a lifelong predilection for carne asada and Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Speaking of cheap beer, there was certainly plenty of that at my high school reunion. I grew up in a midwestern town but midwestern towns are taking a bit of a hit in the news lately, so I won’t say which one. As far as I know my hometown has had no incidents of pet-eating, gang take-overs, or massive crime waves but maybe I’m just not paying close enough attention. The whole pet-eating thing reminds me of the farm camp I went to where we had to care for a heifer every day. I named my Lovey because she was so affectionate with me. On the last day of camp, we were given a piece of white chalk and told to mark all the different cuts of beef on their black fur. Obviously, there’s a fine line between pets and meat. That camp was built directly on top of that line.

In order to avoid any more unwanted controversy I’ll just say that this city is in a state with two O’s in its name and the town’s name rhymes with “bin bin addi.” It’s also famous for its chili though not because people think it’s good. It’s odd that a city would be known for something that everyone thinks is super gross rather than something that counts as an actual attraction. It would be like going to New York City to experience rats running across your open-toed shoes. It’s not a selling point. Don’t put it on any flyers.

In all fairness I have consumed my fair share of said chili, though I think most tourists miss the point of it. That food is best consumed at 3 a.m. after a long night of drinking when your taste buds are addled and you’re generally making poor life choices, which brings us back to the cheap beer thing.

I don’t think of myself as a snob, particularly when it comes to beer, and I do expend a great amount of time trying to assimilate with the “average people.” Anyone who spends this much energy trying to hide his superiority cannot truly be a snob. If you disagree then I would respectfully tell you that you’re wrong and you should listen to people who know better. Like me, for example.

Regardless, when it comes to beer I can throw back a solid domestic when the time is right. Mostly the time isn’t right but when you’re standing next to 60 of your high school buddies and a giant tub filled with Miller Lites, you kind of have to roll with it. In this case “roll with it” means consuming way too much and feeling like complete crap the next day. Though that may have been from the chili. Hard to say.

Reunions are both challenging and fun. I went to an all-boys Jesuit high school where my graduating class was about 340 dudes. The term sausage party comes to mind but that’s terribly inappropriate, so I won’t say it. Beyond that, getting any group of early mid-early 50-year-olds together is an exercise in what I call MIR, which stands for Medical Information Restraint. None of us really wanted to stand around and talk about what was currently ailing our poor aging bodies but it was somehow unavoidable, like every conversation was a one tiny step away from pulling medical charts out of our pockets. Sure, we discussed families, sports, and jobs but mostly we talked about our rotator cuffs, plantar fasciitis, and the various things we’d had cut off or cut out of us. As we walked to see a home football game it was discovered that one of our classmates, let’s call him Tim because his name is Tim, was a dermatologist and within minutes there was a line of guys pulling their shirts up or dropping trou to show him some lump, mole or mark. To his credit he gave everyone free advice which seemed to mostly be “go to a doctor that’s not in the parking lot of a high school football game.” I think he may have also warned people about hiding flasks of bourbon in their pants but I might be making that up. Sound medical advice either way, though. If you’re wondering why so many of my former classmates had flasks in their pants, I would point out that high school football games are disappointingly dry. No booze at all. I wondered if that’s part of the plan to make the reunions feel more nostalgic as once again, 35 years later, we were all standing around trying to figure out how to sneak alcohol into the game. It’s like we never left.

What’s most fun about high school reunions for me is that feeling that things have never changed for that group of people in your life. Granted, everyone looks different, mostly as a result of less hair where you want it, more hair where you don’t want it and various stages of bloating, but the relationships kind of start right where they left off. Within five minutes of seeing each other we were all laughing like we used to, talking smack like we used to, and generally just enjoying the hell out of each other’s company. Just like we used to.

I honestly think that some of my high school classmates are the funniest people I know and I was laughing harder than I have in years. Five years to be exact. The 30th was pretty much the same formula. Now maybe it’s because I only see these folks at the reunions, but it might also just be that they’re really funny. I also think that so much of my sense of humor was developed during that period of my life that it just hits me better. Either way, I was so happy to be there and be laughing with them that I’m already excited about the 40th. I really hope that by then my rotator cuff will be healed and my plantar fasciitis will be gone, but for sure I’m gonna have Tim check out this one spot I have on my back.