It Was SO Wisconsin

My 35th high school reunion took place in the village of Winne-conne, WI, in a sports bar named Critters. Now, places all over the country call themselves sports bars. They think they can do that just because they have large screen TVs all over the place & hang things like framed football jerseys on the walls. But you really don't know sports bars until you go to Critters. Our party was in the archery range, where stuffed animals of all breeds lurked behind the band, threatening to come to life and charge at us at any moment.

I am between my old friends Debby and Linda. Debby, aka Farkle, is happily waving a flower lollipop that I brought from PA as a gift for her. It looks exactly like the plastic flowers on sticks that were trendy in the early 1970s. We called them "fucks" and carried them around school, waiting for any opportune moment to boink each other and yell out a hearty "fuck you!" on our way to the next class. Don't ask me why this was so funny, but it was, at least until Mrs. Grey, the elderly home economics teacher, overheard us one time and just about had an anorism. From then on she and her pastor husband avoided us like the perverbial Plague, as it was clear we were Bad Girls Going To Hell. That suited us just fine as it made it much easier to sneak into the john for smokes between classes. Note the sign above us and remember: Shoot at designated targets ONLY.

While at this reunion I stayed with my friend Sandy, on the left, and my neighbor and best friend Diane is on the right, with her little sister Patti in front. I am six feet tall and blonde and for some reason have usually had best friends who are petite and brunette. Diane and Patti lived half a mile down our country road and we spent many hours dancing to hokey fifties music & walking the four miles into the village for french fries. I had to be careful to keep friends out of our house because of all the drugs and other strange and/or illegal goings on. My friends knew something was wrong but never pressed me on it. Instead, they were there for me, accepting and loving me for myself. I was very blessed, and treasure their freindships to this day.

The day after the reunion I took my first real boyfriend, Cary, to lunch at Westward Ho, the place where we met and fell in love. Westward Ho was the little skating rink a couple of miles outside the village, out on County S. I'd been sexually abused a few times by the time I met Cary, so I was much more experienced than he was, even though he had a rep as the worst of the town's bad boys. Today Westward Ho's rink is closed and it's just one of many country bars along the road.

Cary was a greaser hippie three years older than me, which considering what I was used to made him my peer. We went together for some time until I realized I couldn't have a real boyfriend as long as I lived in my parents house. Life was too complicated to allow something sweet and innocent like young love to prosper. Cary has MS now and walks with the aid of a cane. He stopped taking his medications and has decided to let nature take its course. We see each other every five years when I return for reunions. It's hard to get him out of his apartment because all he does is sit in the dark, chain-smoking and watching old black and white movies, but this time I took him on a silly adventure. Pictures of our afternoon together will be in my next blog entry.

NOTE: To see the stuffed animals in the first picture, or closeups of any picture, just click directly on it.