 The Invitation—Autumn 2008 He stands staring at the cork bulletin board mounted on the kitchen wall and asks himself, How did they track me down? Like an ancient wizard hiding under an invisibility cloak, he’s gone out of his way to conceal himself. Apparently not as well as I thought. Behind him the late afternoon sun lingers in the western sky, an incandescent gold sphere fading to orange, poised to dip behind the hills west of his Colorado Springs home. But there it is, unanticipated and unwelcomed, posted next to an appointment calendar featuring a glossy photo of a chocolate-brown Arabian mare named Queen Sheba. This is Autumn’s calendar, full of crosses, circles, notations, and scribbles, a sketchpad of his daughter’s life, which, he appreciates, is much busier than his. Now, as retirement looms just over the horizon, he knows he prefers it this way. His eye scans and settles on today’s date, Saturday, October 11th. He studies the invitation and confirms what he already knows. His high school reunion is eight weeks away, just nine days after Thanksgiving. Leave it to the planners to schedule the damn event right after the holidays, he grumbles to himself. How about considering people who travel over the holiday? Isn’t it a little presumptuous to ask my classmates to drag themselves all the way to Philadelphia for next weekend, too? But it really doesn’t matter. There’s no way I’m going. He feels a pair of slender arms wrap around his waist and give him an affectionate hug. He takes in Joan’s perfume, a fragrance called Chloe, as she nuzzles her cheek against his neck. “I’m surprised you even kept that invitation,” she comments, her thin, soft lips an inch from his ear, “let alone post it. Occasions like that never seemed to interest you before.” “It’s the first time since graduation that I’ve been invited to an event like this,” he informs her. “Which is the way I like it.” “My point exactly,” she says moving beside him. “How did they track you down?” “Googled me, I guess. How many Kelly Masters with ties to the Air Force Academy could there be? Either that or someone paid for one of those fee-based Internet searches.” “It looks like your anonymity has been compromised, Mr. Wizard,” she teases, her fine blond hair brushing against his shoulder. In two-inch heels she stands almost as tall as him, no mean accomplishment, since at the age of fifty-eight, he is still just over six feet. “So it would seem,” he agrees, marveling how much alike they think. After a pause she adds, “Any interest in attending this one?” “Not a whit,” he replies, a little more emphatic than he intended. “But it is your fortieth. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” “Not enough to fly to Philly just to hang around with a bunch of middle-aged Northeast graduates hopelessly mired in some distant past. Besides, there’s no one in particular I’d be interested in seeing.” “No one?” “Not a soul.” She nods, accepting his position on the matter. But he knows that if he allows her to peer into his heart of hearts, she will discover that this isn’t entirely true. There is someone—a very special someone who he wishes would be there. On the other hand, he knows this person won’t. Shifting topics, Joan mentions, “Don’t forget to pick Autumn up at the stables. I’m meeting Maddy for coffee at six. We’re planning Colin Holiday’s victory party.” “The election’s not until next month. Isn’t that a bit premature?” “Not when I’m supporting the most impressive local candidate.” “I’ll grant you that. I just don’t want you to be disappointed if he loses.” “I’m a big girl, Kel,” she says, flashing him a charming little smile. “I can handle it. Besides, the polls have him up by 15 points. Shouldn’t that allow for some optimism?” “That it should.” “Don’t expect me before nine. After that, maybe we can play.” “Now, there’s something worth waiting up for. Later that evening, with his fifteen-year-old daughter at a friend’s for a sleepover and his wife still party planning, Kelly descends to the lower level of their three-story, suburban home. Last spring, after Jason, their twenty-one year old son, enlisted in the Army, he targeted the family room for some renovation. Designating half the floor space as a workout area, he schlepped his elliptical trainer, a Precor treadmill, and a rack of free weights into the enclosure. Then, in the southwest corner he set up an L-shaped desk and a hutch for his computer, its peripherals, his files and textbooks. Now, months later, he spends most of his evenings down there, handling family finances, making online purchases, fashioning lesson plans, surfing the Internet, and even toying with the flight simulator Joan had bought him last Father’s Day. Comfortably seated, he reviews the day’s headlines and checks his e-mail. While scrolling through his new messages, he peruses ads from online retailers and promotions from national organizations. Then, about halfway down the list of forty messages, he notices the one from Greg Cohen. Once again this gives him pause. He recalls its arrival a week ago accompanied by an intriguing, yet somewhat disconcerting attachment. Truthfully, when it first appeared, he had trouble accounting for its origin, initially assuming it was a pitch for sexual enhancement drugs or a financial planner fishing for clients. Deep in a recess of his mind, however, the correspondent’s name did ring a bell. Yielding to curiosity he clicked the message open. Hi everyone, it begins. With the momentous occasion of next month’s Northeast High School class of ’68’s Fortieth Reunion, I thought it would be fun to invite everyone on a stroll down memory lane. You may recall that during the last few months of our junior year and for most of our senior, I felt inspired to circulate a weekly newsletter, i.e., a gossip sheet, chronicling the exploits of a small cadre of the 127th class as they endured the day-to-day trials and tribulations of high school life. I dubbed it the Daily Disaster and amazingly, most of its issues have survived the ravages of time. So, in anticipation of our upcoming reunion, I’ve rescued those faded, yellowed, typewritten gossip sheets and successfully transcribed them into one concise Microsoft Word document. Now with that project complete, I thought I’d take this opportunity to share these moments with those of you I could reach by e-mail. My thanks to Reunion.com, Classmates.com, Facebook and the Northeast High School Alumni office for assistance in this matter. I only hope that everyone that I’ve contacted appreciates the spirit of fun and nostalgia with which these are made available and trust you’ll enjoy revisiting our time at Northeast as much as I did. And to those of you who plan to attend, see you at the reunion! The message was signed, Greg Cohen, class of ’68. Kelly tries to picture Greg. What comes to mind is a thin boy of average build, with dark hair and a warm, ingratiating smile. He had been part of a large group of what was considered the more intellectually gifted Jewish students at Northeast, a crowd with whom Kelly frequently hung out. In a neighborhood where approximately 85 percent of the populace followed the Old Testament, even though he was Christian, and Presbyterian at that, he could do little else. The Disaster, he recalls, arrived on the scene late in their junior year. Kelly, when he reflects upon it, is amazed that so many of the issues lived on. And as much as he has struggled to deny that part of his life and ostensibly purge it from his memory, there is still this gentle but relentless pull of nostalgia from that time in his life. Although the e-mail arrived days ago, until this moment he had resisted the temptation to review its attachment. He blames his procrastination on his busy schedule and the need to leave the past in the past. But here he sits in front of his computer, on a quiet Saturday evening in early October, with nothing else on tap and no more excuses. To his surprise the pounding of his heart distracts him. He clicks on the file. He is given the option of saving it to his computer or viewing it. He clicks it open. While reading the first paragraph of the inaugural issue, he grins. “I remember reading this when it first came out,” he murmurs. April 4,1967 THE DAILY DISASTER ISSUE 1 Due to the fact that this is my first attempt at a newspaper of any kind, a short apology is in order. No doubt the contents may seem dull, uninteresting, and uninformative, what I intend to present is a raw collection of the daily exploits that fill the ordinary life of many high school students. It’s all in good humor and I stress that all the remarks, cuts, or degradations are delivered in the act of fun. The purpose of the paper is to supply little known facts about little known people in the Northeast student body. I hope you enjoy it. The Editor And then he comes to the first article. Sensing its significance he blurts out, “Oh my God!” Around the World and Around the Corner At 1:52PM on March 30, 1967, the three SPARC astronauts left the capsule after their fifty-one hour ‘flight’. There to meet them as they left the capsule were about thirty Northeasters along with other well-wishers and one WCAU motion picture cameraman. The boys were rushed out of the auditorium and now will return to their ‘normal’ lives. Son of a gun! he declares. That was my SPARC program and one of those three astronauts was me. He checks the date again and does the math. He had just turned sixteen that month, a lanky, tow-headed adolescent, all spindly arms and long legs, full of raging hormones and boasting an exceptional intellect that juggled all sorts of inquiries, hopes and dreams. It was in SPARC that his physics teacher’s channeled so much of that intellect and energy. SPARC, originally standing for Space Research Capsule, was conceived by Dr. Robert Montgomery, affectionately known as The Mont, in the fall of 1959, as a means of motivating his high school protégés into the fields of science and engineering. And it was some of these enlightened students who eventually succeeded in building a mock-up of NASA’s first orbiter capsule, the same one that flew John Glenn and Scott Carpenter around the planet. Initially the venture was housed in a backstage corner of the high school’s auditorium. Then, in 1963, when a new wing was added to Northeast’s main building, the equipment was relocated there, giving birth to the SPARC Project that has persisted to this day. Kelly recalls how the program grew exponentially since its inception. By 1967, this ‘aeronautical’ wing not only housed the capsule, but a bank of sophisticated flight monitoring equipment, a complex oxygen delivery system, and most importantly, a substantial number of student participants volunteering their time and effort to discover, first hand, what space travel was all about. Needless to say, the most coveted role in this complex drama was that of astronaut. And Kelly, proudly, was one. In this cherished role his identity slowly solidified, his fragile self-esteem blossomed and ultimately, a future in the United States Air Force Academy followed by a career in aviation and aeronautics instruction. But it all started with SPARC, he muses wistfully. Perhaps, with his lifetime of accomplishment, it is disingenuous of him to deny that pivotal part of his past. He also knows that by recalling the joy and success of those turbulent times, he will also be compelled to revisit the pain and loss. He senses that if he does dare to breech that old emotional dam, there may follow a flood that he can do little to stop. Continues... |
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