Today a good friend of mine sent me a link to photos he took recently of a visit to his hometown in the middle of America, on the occasion of his 35th high school reunion, and of the town’s annual parade. For reasons that at first weren’t clear to me, I clicked and viewed every one of these hundreds of photos. By the time I got to the end, I understood why I had done so. It’s because I find both of his topics — high school reunions and local parades — completely inexplicable.
This should in no way rob anyone else of their enjoyment of them, but to me they’re a mystery.
Let’s take the high school reunion first. I hated almost every moment of high school. I say almost, because while most of the moments of high school were about the authorities doing their best to contain me in various subtle and not-so-subtle ways, there were also those delicious moments when I stuck my thumb in their eye: ditching class to hang out in the woods with girls; skipping whole periods by reading and writing what I wanted in the photographic darkroom courtesy of the key I had stolen; writing a play and directing it and casting it against their every objection (right up to the feedback that it was “Too long” — and so, I retitled the play “Too Long”), and then having the play be a hit that got big laughs; confronting the headmaster for years afterward in person and via letter over an injustice he visited upon me, until finally he died (I sent two letters to his next of kin, then finally let it drop); concocting an utterly implausible story about how I had been Saved and having them buy it; responding to the rule that one must “wear a tie” by wearing it around my head, draped over my shoulder, in the crook of my arm, backwards, tied wrong, essentially incorrectly in every conceivable way; and so forth. Actually, I owe the friend who sent the photos a debt of gratitude for summoning forth from me all these actually terrific memories of high school, however scattered. But the salient point is this: Almost none of these good memories have almost anything to do with anyone else there. So the idea of reuniting with my classmates is truly alien. On Facebook someone who said she was an old classmate reconnected with me; I couldn’t remember her. Soon others did the same. Then I saw photos of the reunion they held. I couldn’t remember any of these people. They may be perfectly good and fine adults — in fact, they were probably perfectly good and fine adolescents. But because I didn’t want to be there — desperately didn’t want to be there — by extension, I didn’t want to know them. That feeling holds to this day. Hence my interest earlier today in watching photos of my friend now on a flatbed truck with a dozen fellow classmates, waving to the assembled parade watchers. I can’t understand this. Somehow, the dozen reunited classmates are temporary luminaries because, I guess, they’re still alive. Is that what this is about? What is the interest of the people on the sidelines in waving at these people who have lived long enough to sit in the truck? It almost seems like an appeal to God: “We are glad to see that you are still alive, because at your age, we will still want to be alive and have people wave at us.” This is only way I can make sense of this.
Which takes me to the topic of the parades.
I’ve never liked parades. Here’s how a parade works: The town lines the streets to watch people pass by. Almost all the time, the people who pass by in the parade — drum majorettes, the mayor, surviving high-school graduates, the town Rotary — are already known to the people on the sidelines. So this is some sort of aspirational classism: “We salute you people we already know, because this year you’re in the parade. We have to for this one day treat you as though you are a celebrity, and not someone we live and work alongside every other day. And one day, if we join a club or maybe just live long enough, we will be in the parade and you will cheer us.” Put this way, our culture’s interest in Hollywood celebrity becomes all the clearer — it is a macro magnification of the parade. “I see you on TV and in supermarket checkout magazines and on billboards, and if I am lucky, some day I will see you in person, and then I can tell everyone I was someplace with you, and by extension, some of your celebrity will reflect onto me, and I will be a celebrity among my own people, at least for a while.” My personal feelings about celebrity are complicated. The people who to me are celebrities and whom I have met — people like Edward Albee and Athol Fugard and August Wilson — have proved to be personal disappointments; now I find that I would rather not meet most of the artists whose work I enjoy, because the experience of meeting them and interacting with them is so often detrimental to my continued enjoyment of their work. (Fortunately, there are exceptions: I had the great good joy to hang out with Pulitzer prize-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire in May and June, and I can tell you, he is a brilliant writer and a truly great guy. But in my experience the combination of the two is rare.) So I would rather not meet with and work with celebrities — but at the same time, I’m aware of the power that celebrity can lend to your own perceived power and influence. Yes, I have dropped the names of very well-known or very influential or very wealthy people I have worked with, for reasons of esteem-building and business-building. But I will tell you: Every time I do, I cringe a little inside.
I’m glad my friend sent the link to these photos. I am in no way am I sneering at them. I find them fascinating. (I also find that they make me hunger for corn on the cob, a major subject of the hometown parade.) I find them difficult to relate to. Lately I’ve been watching the series “Wonders of the Solar System” and looking at my friend’s photos has me thinking how strange these alien worlds are, with their ice volcanoes and acid atmospheres and 61 moons and countless rings of frozen water. These alien worlds are beautiful and fascinating and difficult for me to understand, except as a visitor. Like these parade photos.
