Dysmey Post Archive > Pages for 2003 > The Late June 2003 Edition
I had slowly made headway with the piles of dead branches and yard waste. The pile next to the trash barrel had been burned Sunday afternoon. After an hour I tried to put out the fire for the evening, but the fire was stubborn in going out. Indeed, I found the next morning that the wood had kept burning quietly through the night, so that the barrel was filled with white ash.
It is illegal in my town to burn yard waste after six in the evening, so I will wait until the next weekend to rid myself of the pile of branches in the back corner.
By then I hope that the dead tree on the corner of Jefferson and Elm will be gone. Indeed, it must be gone: the town sent a certified letter last week ordering the removal of the tree by this Friday on pain of a fine and possible court action. Padre found a local fellow who cuts down trees, who will dismantle the tree either Thursday or Friday. It's well he's local: Tree cutters charge per mile to and from a site, making those in Marion and Gas City expensive.
Summer has come, and with it high school reunions for those who graduated in a year that ended in a three or an eight.
In my case, there should be a 25th-year reunion for my own high school class of 1978. But I have heard nothing. There may well not be one.
At the only reunion I went to, back in 1993, I had a really good time. It was picnic with charcoal-grilled food, and volleyball, and conversation with people I barely associated with when I was in high school. (And that was almost everyone: I was the class geek.)
There was also a party the night before. I did not go to that one: I don't drink and I don't dance. (I am such a bore! A bore!! :) ).
The Most Important Person, who made my life miserable when she ever noticed me at all, attended the party but not the picnic: something to do with her grandmother's birthday, I'm told. I wasn't told whether her lovely and shapely Familiar, who also had a hand in my misery, was at the party, too.
The party was a bust, anyway. My classmates were angry because the DJ, who was hired to play 1970's music, insisted on playing grunge instead. I don't blame the fellow. He would've choked on his own barf before the night was over. The 1970's was a saccharine nightmare: The Bee Gees, KC and the Sunshine Band, John Denver, Starland Vocal Band, Barry Manilow, Shawn Cassidy, Leif Garrett, Sweet, Donna Summer, The Carpenters. This was the age of disco, of bubblegum rock, before grunge, before rap, almost before punk. It's something of a miracle that we made it out of high school without going nuts.