Saturday night was my 25th high school reunion. Hard to believe it's been that long since it doesn't feel like I should be in my early 40s, but that is what the driver's license with the horrible picture on it reveals.

I'm writing this a couple days before the reunion and wondering what it's going to be like. If everyone will be like I remember them. I wonder where they all are in their lives. I wonder if their parents are still alive. If they have kids. I wonder if we'll like each other more or less now than we did in high school.

I was talking at work about going to this reunion and also a high school reunion my wife (it was not her 25th) had a few weeks ago, and a co-worker said it reminded him of a quote from the movie "Grosse Pointe Blank."

Marcella: You know, when you started getting invited to your 10-year high school reunion, time is catching up.

Marcella: Yes, I did. It was just as if everyone had swelled.

I thought about that quote for a minute. The swelling part, that is. It made me laugh. Then I read the part about a sense of mortality or a fear of death.

Like my parents, I was in my 30s when my kids were born and having kids at that stage in life, well, has kept me even more active than I already was. I've never had a fear of death, and even though people close to me have died, the fear of dying is just not there. Guess I'm not like George Costanza on "Seinfeld."

George, talking about thinking about dying with an 80-plus year-old man on the show:

George: You don't? Boy, I think about it a lot. I think about it at my age. Imagine how much I'll be thinkin' about it at your age. All I'll do is keep thinkin' about it until it drives me insane...

There's more conversation, mostly with George not believing the man doesn't think about dying. It ends with the man walking out.

George: Wait a second, where are you going?

Ben: Life's too short to waste on you.

———

I remember my parents going to high school reunions, especially their 50th. I thought it was great. It seemed like everyone wanted to go. Anytime they had a reunion Mom would always go through the list of people there and tell me stories about them that she had already told me. Didn't matter though.

My reunion does not seem to be like that. Only about one-fourth of the class had signed up through Thursday, though I'm sure more will be there. But it doesn't seem to be priority. That's a shame.

———

I kept reading some quotes from "Grosse Pointe Blank" until I came across one I wish I hadn't read.

Arlene: [about the nametags shes made for the reunion] I had the yearbook pictures put on so everybody knows who everybody was!

Martin Q. Blank: A special torture!

Oh man, I hope not.

Edwin Quarles is night editor of The Lufkin Daily News.