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Managing editor
I was late by about one hour for my special reunion Monday night.
All five other members were already there, trying to find one more lofty cause to toast to.
I became one when they saw me, raising their glasses. "All for one, one for all," we said in unison, one of them passing me a half-filled glass.
I felt as if I were young again, more preciously 31 years younger.
Then, we belonged to the class of 1982 and joined a college English-language newspaper together.
Originally, there were seven of us. One dropped out soon afterwards, saying that he wanted to study without distractions.
We don't know where he is now but he was right about being a college journalist becoming a major distraction for studying at least for me with my grades testifying to it. Still I by and large enjoyed my salad days as a reporter.
Six have remained and are still in contact.
Sitting at the center on the other side of the table was the only woman among us.
Then, she was the object of our love, life of our party and leader of our team.
On Monday night, she looked a bit older with her face rounder and her upper body slightly fuller but she was our darling again. She is now a homemaker who is married to a retired journalist.
At her right was my soul mate, who was the only other engineering major among us. He is a construction firm executive.
Thanks to low lighting, he looked as if he had consumed a bottle of fruit wine cherished by his father. I couldn't go to school because of a terrible hangover the following day. I was told he was okay, wondering why he, half my size, could drink more than I could. Then, the amount of drinks one could have was one of the determining factors in the pecking order. He proved to be still a notch above me in drinking.
Across my drinking buddy was our English literature major, nicknamed Socrates.
I am still searching without success for how he got that nickname. Rather, he should have been called Placido Domingo, being a good singer and lover of the classics. He teaches at a college. He had deeper wrinkles on his face but exuded the same enthusiasm he had when we were young.
At his right was a politics professor who the rest of us had agreed was the least likely among us to pursue an academic career. When he stretched, a big paunch appeared on his abdomen, making me think people would believe it was the stomach of a pregnant woman. I didn't say it.
Across from me was a fund manager who lost a great deal of hair.
He had a natural hairdo like an Afro in college but now showed patches on his pate. If I had met him for the first time, I wouldn't have believed that he was once a person with abundant hair. I teased him, asking him where his long hair was gone.
He said, "It's gone with my youth." He was in a funereal mood for much of the evening and I felt guilty about it. I decided not to tell him that he would look the same as he was in college, if he had more hair. It wouldn't have been of much consolation.
We talked about our seniors we worked with at our paper.
I picked one senior and criticized him for being unkind to me during our first summer trip.
Thirty summers ago, our school bus broke down well before our destination and we had to walk. Sitting next to me, he complained about the lack of space for him to move around. When I talked about him, my friends took a collective moment of silence.
Then, they told me that he died and I felt bad about it.
Of course, there are many more who are doing well. We talked about those who were junior to us. I blurted out one name and everybody went silent.
"She is too much for us," one said.
I volunteered to say that he was wrong. At the end of the night, we said what we had to say. It's like when we were young and clueless. That was a moment worth being cherished. I felt young again.
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