“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.. it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.. “
— Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
This familiar quote by Dickens, from his famous novel — the most printed original book written in English, by some accounts — was, of course, written about a fictional event, the French Revolution. But it might just as well have been written about the lives of the 108 Stinkwater Springs citizens who gathered last week at the Community Center for a remarkable class reunion.
“We honestly never believed we’d all live long enough to see this reunion take place,” confessed the reunion’s chief organizer Charles Darnay. “You can imagine, it’s been quite emotional for all of us. Quite emotional.”
The reunion celebrates the Class of 2010 from the Stinkwater School of Hard Knocks.
“I don’t know if you were living in Stinkwater back in 2010?” asked former class president Sydney Carton, who had served as the president of the Stinkwater Builders Association back in that long-ago time.
 I assured him that I was, indeed, a resident of Stinkwater back in 2010. I was actually a bit surprised he didn't recognize me, since I had actually waited on his table once or twice that year.
“Well then, I guess you can remember what we all went through,” he continued. “It was a hell of a year for me, personally. Lost my job. Got divorced. House was foreclosed on. Got so bad, I couldn’t afford my subscription to Playboy magazine. Then my goldfish died. Hell of a year.”
Carton wasn’t the only class member to see hard times that year.
“Sydney went through some hard knocks, that’s for sure,” affirmed classmate Lucie Manette. “Especially him losing his magazine subscription. But we all went through the School of Hard Knocks that year.”
Manette then related a string of personal misfortunes as long as my arm (although she cunningly left out any mention of her sordid affair love with Syndey Carton that year, an event which I remember very well, and which caused her fiancé Charles Darnay considerable heartache.)
“The worst part of the whole miserable year, though: my hairdresser went bankrupt and had to leave town. That was the last straw,” Manette explained with tears in her eyes. “I knew I couldn’t remain in Stinkwater any longer.”
She said she had hitchhiked to nearby Durango and caught a flight back to her family home in Lubbock, Texas.
“Texas was the only place in the whole country that seemed immune to the recession,” Carton related, with his hand gently touching Manette’s elbow. (I noticed a sharp look coming from Darnay, but luckily no violence ensued.)
“So now we’ve gathered all the remaining Class of 2010 from the Stinkwater School of Hard Knocks,” Carton continued. “There are 108 of us left. Out of nearly 12,000 who were living here in 2010.”
Darnay shook his head sadly.
“All the wrong ones were taken, that’s all I can say. It should have been us, but God spared us for some reason. If there were any justice in the world, I know for doggone certain Lucie and Sydney wouldn’t be here today. But here they are, nevertheless. Who can fathom the mysterious ways of heaven?”
“Okay, who’s up for volleyball?” Goldie Monroe, the former director of the Stinkwater Springs Chamber of Commerce, had just arrived in her beat-up 1968 VW bus, and was tossing a volleyball in her typical energetic manner. “Sydney? Lucie? Charlie? Just for old times sake?”
I quickly exited the scene, looking for more depressing stories with which to entertain our Stinkwater Springs readers. |