I don’t do high school reunions anymore.

A high-school reunion, for those of you who haven’t yet had the pleasure, is a malicious version of “This Is Your Life,” except that instead of a studio audience of admirers and friends, you are confronted by a provincial gaggle of hostile peers, waiting to judge you by ten-, twenty- or thirty-year-old expectations.

Unlike some of my classmates from my then blue-collar hometown, high school was not the high point of my life, so I guess my perceptions are a bit skewed. In fact, my memories of that time and crowd—those I haven’t successfully suppressed, that is—make the cast of “Survivor” look like a support group. Continued…