Last night I saw #1 graduate from high school. The cooling fogs have disappeared and the sun beat down on us as though we were lost travelers on a caravan bound for Timbuktu. Along with us, my brother Wes and his family watched the proceedings. My mind wandered back to my own graduation from Palo Alto High a few decades ago. I remember best holding up the girl in front of me who had tippled a little too much to handle this task on her own. Strict steps are taken nowadays to make sure that alcohol doesn't impinge upon the festivities. Immediately following the ceremony, the grads were whisked away by bus to a secret location which turned out to be an auditorium in San Francisco. The school gym had been good enough for us. We celebrated #1 in absentia with pizza and soft drinks and a Fat Tire for me and Liz, my sister-in-law.
Even more nostalgia-ridden was my trip last week to my alma mater for a reunion. I brought #4 with me and we stayed in an undergraduate dorm. He went to camp each day; they must have been doing some early recruiting since he came back determined to return in a decade as a freshman.
As college grads, my classmates and I were sassy, disrespectful, and smart-alecky. This new generation seems to have their heads screwed on a little better. As my reunion class wended our way through them, they seemed 
with their achievement and each side congratulated the other for making it to this milestone. The ceremony itself was stately and well-organized. My only objection -- and it's not a small one -- is that the attendees gave a standing ovation to the world's richest man and not to others including Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who discovered pulsars, one of the greatest scientific discoveries of the last century. We were at a graduation at a center of academic learning, not at a People's Magazine award dinner, for goodness sake!
I had two dinners with long-time buddies who had children graduating -- amazing. We had panel discussions where we reviewed clips from seminal movies. An old friend, now a prof at Wellesley, was astute, cogent, and funny in discussing the original MASH, which upon re-viewing is misogynistic at best.
When I saw one woman, an ex of a good friend, I gave her a hug before it became clear she didn't remember me. When I told her what I recalled, she looked at me like I was a stalker -- how could a stranger know these long hidden facts about me? Thankfully for my ego, there was only that one misplaced hug.
We went to a memorial service for those classmates who'd died -- very moving. I only found out about the death of one classmate whom I'd also gone to grad school with a couple of months ago.
It was disconcerting to discover among my classmates a law professor who lives two blocks from here, a physicist whose kids go to the school where my wife works, the head of the English Department at that very school. They're good company, too. Do you remember that old Liza Minelli song about having to go to Dubrovnik to meet the guy in the apartment next door?
One classmate had read Dot Dead and called it an inspiration. She's going to try to write her own mystery in the next twelve months. I chatted with classmate William Martin whose first novel Back Bay spent 14 weeks on the NY Times bestseller list and whose newest is The Lost Constitution.
A couple of months ago I'd asked my old buddy Dave if he was coming. When he balked, I told him I would stop in DC and pick him up. That didn't prove necessary and he thanked me for my bullying. Just chatting with my classmates was the highlight of the four days. The reunion reminded me of wrtiers' conferences. There's a summer camp aspect to the whole thing. All these people with something in common get together and talk and drink. Then, poof, it's over and back to everyday life.
After the reunion, #4 and I walked Boston's Freedom Trail. He was on a quest for the site of the Boston Massacre and obtained great satisfaction in finding it. Then we traveled up to Manchester-by-the-Sea to stay with physician, polymath, and mystery author L.M. ("Larry") Vincent and family. (Larry has 
written two mysteries, Final Dictation and Pas de Death, the only two ever written with a radiologist as the amateur detective. He's also the author of the seminal Competing with the Sylph: The Quest for the Perfect Dance Body.) #4 frolicked in the ocean, we celebrated the birthday of Sharon, Larry's wife, checked out Motif #1 in Rockport, ducked into bookstores, and enjoyed seaside living.
The kids will be done with school tomorrow and after more than a week off, I'd better turn back to draft #3 of Two Graves. A highlight this weekend will be the new Nancy Drew movie -- #3 and I are chomping at the bit.
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