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I had to look up her picture in our high school yearbook.

I remembered her name but had to remind myself what she looked like. I don’t think we were ever in the same classes, though maybe in grade school.

Not that I wasn’t happy to hear from her.

Since my 30^th high school reunion, mostly through the power of Facebook, I had been in touch with several former classmates, some I had seen at the reunion, some who weren’t able to make it.

Merle wrote to me after my blog on the reunion, joking that she was sorry she missed the mysterious guy in the burgundy sport coat whom I had written about. I don’t know how she had found me. I only know what connects us now.

I called up her second e-mail as I stood on the corner one morning last week, waiting to meet up with a friend and go walking. When I saw the word “Alzheimers” in the subject line, it did not particularly shock me.

I hope it doesn’t sound pompous when I say that I don’t think a single week has gone by since I wrote about my family’s experience with Alzheimer’s in the Tribune Sunday Magazine a year and a half ago, that I haven’t heard from someone about it.

At first, the response was shocking – both in volume and in the depth of emotion. In some cases, I had friends and colleagues who were going through much the same thing my family and I were going through and yet we had never talked about it, never knew. But I was just as touched by total strangers who wrote or approached me, and who continue to do so, saying they read the story, that they remembered it or that they related to it somehow.

When I called up Merle’s e-mail while standing on the corner last week, the words, sadly, were not unfamiliar. And so, as I always do, I kept reading:

Dear Missy,

My father just died from dementia this summer.  We didn’t go to the reunion, because we couldn’t afford to go back to Chicago again after the funeral tapped us out.  I am married to xxxx. from high school, we have two children and we live in [California].

More to the point, my father was diagnosed in 2000 with Alzheimer’s.  At first he lost his short-term memory and our lives were like the movie, “Ground Hog Day.”  Every three minutes we would have the exact same conversation. 

“Dad, you have a doctor’s appointment in an hour, you have to get ready.”

“You didn’t tell me about the doctor’s appointment, what doctor?”

“Doctor Green.”

“Who is Doctor Green?  He is not my doctor, I am not going.”  (repeat for the next half hour)

The good part was that because my father could not remember, we just would make up answers until he would respond and do what we needed him to do.  He was angry, suspicious, and I assume – terrified.  He knew he was literally losing his mind.  I think in some ways the beginning of the disease was about the hardest, because of the anger and the personality change.

My mother died in 2001 and my father really deteriorated at that point.  We had moved my parents out to California in 2000 because they were both so sick and we needed to take care of them.  From 2000 to 2009, my father lived on his own with a caregiver who came in during the afternoons and evenings.  He never left his home, never tried to cook, and seemed to be safe on his own. 

He slowly forgot our names, our ages, his name, his age, his profession, and everything about his past life.  His personality totally changed.  He went from being the most gentle and most polite person I knew, to a person who was rude and threatening with strangers.  He went from a man who was obsessed with diet and exercise to a man who ate junk food and refused to leave his home.  But, he was always loving and kind to his family and his grandchildren (even though he did not know their names).

Education was always very important to my father.  He was always embarrassed that he was the only member of our family with only a baccalaureate degree.  Two years ago he asked me if he was in first grade. I told him that he had been in first grade 81 years earlier and that he was an accountant.  He seemed very happy for a minute or two, until he forgot and asked me again.  The only thing that my father remembered was that my siblings and I were very important to him and that he loved us.  When I would come over, he would often tell the caregiver that she could leave, because I was there.  He would sit with me and hold my hand while watching television.  He would hit strangers.

One morning this past May, my father refused to get out of bed and to eat or drink.  We took him to the hospital and were told that it was end-stage Alzheimer’s and that his brain had lost the ability to feel hunger or thirst.  We took him home to die and it was brutal.  He literally starved himself to death.  When we tried to feed him or give him something to drink, he would spit out the food or water, he couldn’t swallow and did not know how to eat.  He also went blind.  A friend of mine is a neuropsychologist and she told me that the parts of the brain that control appetite and thirst are close to one of the vision centers and that it made sense to her that he would lose his vision at the same time.  However, even in the last few days before he died, he would pull me, my brother and sister toward him in bed and hug and kiss us.

He couldn’t stand, talk, or really move, but he still knew who we were and he was saying good-bye.  When he died, my sister and I were lying beside him in bed and holding his hands, and his caregiver (who had taken care of him for seven and a half years) was holding his feet. He just stopped breathing.

When the dementia got severe, I felt like not only was my father dying, but that my childhood was dying with him.  A part of my childhood was also going, because those memories of me were gone.  The mourning process has been more difficult than I expected.  I have had to take care of my father for the past nine years and suddenly that responsibility is gone.  I miss going over to his house and seeing him sitting on the couch, watching television, and eating candy and potato chips.  I miss seeing his face light up when I walked in into the room.  Even with this horrible disease he was always my father and I will always miss him.

I am sorry that you are going through this too.

Merle 

I’m not sure why this one letter from this one old friend affected me the way that it did. Maybe because her words were so spare, her feelings so raw. Maybe it was because I happened to get her e-mail in the days following the two-year anniversary of my mom’s death. Or maybe, more likely, because as she described her final days with her father, I could not help but think of our final days with mine.

All I know is that the tears came when I least expected them, standing on a corner, alone with my Blackberry, connected to someone I barely remembered. And that they came hard.

With her permission, I am going to post Merle’s letter on the Alzheimer’s page of my website with hope that it will encourage others to tell their stories. Not to make each other sad, but to feel connected. She said it was cathartic writing about her dad, that she felt a little less isolated.

That’s how it works.

I realize it seems like an awfully suspicious coincidence that the Cubs disappeared at about the same time my blog did last week, but I can assure you one has nothing to do with the other.

I can say this because while I grew up in the northern suburbs surrounded by Cubs fans, I was, by birth, a White Sox fan and therefore have never been privy to that particular brand of angst.

Other kinds of angst, for sure. But not that. And so I have observed each season as the Cubs created new and usually exciting forms of losing with a mixture of awe and yes, empathy for my fellow Chicago fans. It’s not that I haven’t, at various times of my life, been wracked with frustration over the Sox or the Bears, the Bulls or the Hawks. But no one knows despair like that of the Cubs fan.

If I had any doubt of this, my friend Jerry pretty much convinced me with a recent e-mail that both moved me and made me want to get him professional help. The Cubs were in mid-freefall last week and he was giving me his opinion on their current state, which then gave way to his perspective on life as a Cubs’ fan.

I feel I must share this, in part because it is such an exquisite slice of Cubdom and in part because, if you think you have problems, this might cheer you up:

I am convinced that my entire being was shaped in 1969.  I was 13.  I was so into the Cubs and then the final couple of weeks of the season hit and my life began to change.  I firmly believe that my outlook on life was planted in those memories.

[Jerry referring here to the Cubs’ collapse to the eventual world champion New York Mets]

I wait for the other shoe to drop.  I look at the half-empty glass and know that at any minute that glass is going to fall and break.  I know that the promise of tomorrow is all we can hold out for.  I know that yesterday was crappy, today will probably be just as bad, but tomorrow will be better.  Then tomorrow will come and it will be today and the cycle will repeat all over again.

Then we somehow got to 2003 and I remember being at the playoff games and feeling like I was kicked in the head. Too painful to go back.

[Jerry referring here to the Cubs’ collapse -- just five outs short of their first World Series since 1945 -- to the eventual champion Florida Marlins]

And another year goes by and another year of season tickets.  And another year of hope.  And then another "wait until next year".  Next year will be better.  Then next year is this year and next year will be better.  It repeats and repeats and repeats and repeats.  I can't stop the madness.

Dr. Missy, what can I do?   

Dear Jerry,

Though I am not, by trade, a psychologist, I feel I could be one if I really wanted to be. Thus, I feel more than qualified to address your problem.

You should have pulled the plug in ’69.

I realize this is like asking most Cubs fans to have a sex-change operation even though they aren’t inclined to switch to the other gender; that it’s not that easy to change one’s orientation from birth. But something should have told you at 13 that you were headed down a dangerous and self-destructive path.

I realize that’s a tender age to make such an important determination, but just think of how your life could have been entirely different. You could have cheered for slugger Dick Allen (just don’t call him Richie)  in the early 70s; could have enjoyed the “South Side Hitmen” wearing the most hideous uniforms in the history of organized sports in the late 70s; then gloried in Tony LaRussa’s team’s “Winning Ugly” in capturing the ’83 division title.

In the 90s, you could have actually watched baseball in a sparkling new stadium (provided you didn’t try to do it from the upper-deck seats, thus contracting altitude sickness); seen some more uniforms come and go; and observed Ozzie Guillen develop from a crazed young shortstop into a crazed young manager.

And finally Jerry, in 2005, you could have celebrated a WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONSHIP. A World Series, Jerry.  That’s when the two best teams in baseball, one from the National League and one from the American League (your Chicago White Sox) meet to determine the WORLD SERIES CHAMPION.

Since you are my friend, I may have even brought you a souvenir from that series, which I not so proudly swiped from outside the winning lockerroom in Houston. You see, I knew that my brothers being Sox fans, would appreciate a little trinket of some kind. So breaking every sportswriting code and all journalistic ethics, I removed a used champagne bottle from a dumpster and smuggled it back home, still sticky and smelly and carrying germs of unknown origin.

I brought it to show to my daughter’s fifth-grade class and then I kept it because I thought it was cool and my brothers didn’t seem all that thrilled or grateful enough at the gesture. So Jerry, I probably wouldn’t have ended up giving it to you. But I may have showed it to you and then you too could have shared the thrill that my family and I experienced.

You could, on this very night, be watching the White Sox lose another heartbreaker to those no-good, nickname-stealing, bad accent Boston Red Sox. But at least the White Sox are still in the playoff hunt. Tonight, your Cubs beat one of the few teams in baseball worse than yours, the Washington Nationals, which means that despite the fact that they’re still nine games out of first place in the division with only 38 games to go, you might have just a teeny sliver of hope again. You know you do, Jerry.

And hope is never good. You said it yourself.

It’s madness.

Fall is a strange and harrowing time for me.

My birthday is in fall, but I’ve never had a problem with my birthday except that one moment of panic I had when I turned 27 and couldn’t remember how old I was until I did the math.

Football season is in the fall, which, given that I live in Chicago might explain this feeling of impending doom I have been experiencing lately. But then the Bears are full of hope, what with their new quarterback and everything, so that doesn’t really explain it.

Maybe it’s all this talk about superbugs, but I don’t think so since I have no idea what that means.

Nope, I think it’s just fall and the knowledge that no longer will my biggest decision each day revolve around which popsicle flavor to choose (no wait, that’s my son Alec’s biggest decision). But it’s definitely school starting and everything that implies – the hectic schedules, the responsibilities, the lack of family fun time (and oh, what a day that was).

With one child starting high school and the other, junior high, in a matter of days (see, now I’m nervous I’m going to forget which day it is, and my kids will miss their first days of school), there is anxiety aplenty. I believe this dates back to my first days of school and again, it’s probably my parents’ fault.

They never sent me to nursery school as they called it then. Either they forgot because I was the youngest of four or more likely, my mother did not want me to leave home. As a result, I was hardly prepared for my first day of kindergarten, which is why I remember everything in such vivid, terrifying detail, beginning with Ed, the bus driver, peeling me off my father’s leg and continuing as we pulled up to school and someone whose name I had not yet learned, throwing up out the window.

School is simply nerve-wracking, period. My brother Barry, at 57, still regularly has that dream where he can’t find his class, shows up late, finds out it’s the wrong class but that he has a final he didn’t study for. I have that dream too. I believe it’s the classic dream of an overachiever. Either that, or an obsessive-compulsive neurotic, I’m not sure which one.    

My children appear to be OK, though my husband and I did a little checking and discovered that ours was not the only incoming freshman who forgot her name when going to pick up books. I would have made fun of her, but Rick reminds me he had to accompany me to Northwestern that same day last week to help me park. Really, that’s not true. I could have parked alone. But it was scary finding the right building where I had to bring forms for a class I’m taking.

I find I am almost paralyzed these days by simple tasks, which explains the weeklong dearth of blogs (my apologies and thanks if this caused great concern or threw anyone off their normal routines). For a while there, I thought I was done, had nothing significant left to say anymore. Then, thank goodness, I realized that having nothing significant to say had never stopped me before and in fact, goes right to the heart of what my blogs are all about.

Furthermore, I think I need these blogs more than ever as my anchor and a sort of repository of insignificance as life becomes that much more complicated.

I am quite sure, in the coming weeks, that this faculty class I am taking will cause me great angst. I should mention the entire class only lasts 10 days, but they’re accelerated days and since I did not understand the course outline, I am a bit concerned.

Also, in case either child decides for the first time to ask me, and not their father, for any guidance on homework, this could cause some anxious times as well. The books look very scary this year.

Then there are the Bears, which have always made me a little nauseous. And this continued quest toward re-invention, which people now want me to actually speak about as if it is something I have figured out.

This is what I wanted, I keep telling myself. Back when the Tribune told me that in a cost-cutting move, they didn’t want me anymore but then started hiring people and finding other ways to spend the money they had saved, and all I could see was a big void in my future, I wanted to be busy. And honestly, there wasn’t a single day, including the day I left, that I haven’t been busy.

I am, in fact, much busier than I have ever been. And happier, I should add.

This much I have figured out.

The fall? Not yet.

I wonder if this happens to men, too.

I wonder if they can report on stories without at some point filtering them through their perspective as parents.

I can’t help it.

When Patrick Kane said today that the worst part about his arrest a little more than a week ago, was his family seeing him in handcuffs, his voice caught in his throat. And my throat closed up.

Kane is the 20-year-old Blackhawks’ star accused, along with his cousin, of attacking a cab driver in Buffalo over what the driver initially claimed was a dispute over 20 cents in fare. We still haven’t heard Kane’s side of the story and he said Monday that he hopes we never will because that will mean charges were dropped.

Clearly, there is a big part of the story still missing because even alcohol does not explain why a multi-millionaire athlete whose behavior has never before been questioned, would suddenly beat someone up over 20 cents.  

But all I could think about as Kane answered his questions, was how his mother felt when reporters called her cell phone to ask about her son’s arrest, and her biggest problem before that was getting him to stop playing with his mouth guard.

I pictured the first time Kane faced his parents and told them his side of the story and no matter how innocent he thought he was, knowing how destroyed they were seeing their son in handcuffs.

When Kane looked into the cameras and spoke into the microphones and said, “My family didn’t raise me that way,” I had a feeling that’s what they told him.

I thought of Kane’s three younger sisters, who make scrapbooks and “Welcome Home” signs every time he comes back to Buffalo, who struck deals with him when they were little – “We’ll play hockey with you, if you play dolls with us” – and how they must have felt when they first heard the news about their big brother.

And I thought of his grandpa, who lives next door to his parents’ house and who played cards with his grandson and laughed and who told Patrick he “added a couple years to his life” just by what he accomplished.  

I wondered how many people in the Kane’s South Buffalo neighborhood conspicuously stopped talking when they saw Donna Kane in the produce section of the grocery store last week; and how many who thought nothing of coming to their house at all hours to ask for autographs and mementos of the local hero, now whispered and pointed at the house.

I thought about Kane working out at home last week because he didn’t want to go to the gym. And I wondered how you go from the top of the world to sitting up at night wondering how quickly your entire world can change.

I wondered how a parent deals with something like this and how you never stop worrying, even when they’re 20. Maybe especially when they’re 20.

And I wonder how I can ever report a story like this one and forget I’m one of them.  

My husband Rick is, all in all, a good sport. He barely blinks when people call him by my father’s name, “Mr. Isaacson.” He knows to double the time I tell him I’ll be finished writing. And he hardly ever complains when he accompanies me to sporting events only to never actually attend the actual sporting event. 

Today, he came with me to Bourbonnais and Bears training camp. And because, if you happen to read my blogs regularly (and, by the way, thank you so much for that) you already know how I feel about training camp, I will write this blog through Rick’s eyes.

Today, Rick’s eyes told him that most football players are jerks, only he used a worse word.

Fans obviously have a different experience than journalists do. Granted, I was working today, but while I was interviewing players, eating lunch in an air-conditioned cafeteria, writing in an air-conditioning press room and watching practice from along the sideline, Rick was sweating along with the thousands of other spectators, my son Alec and a few of his friends, behind the ropes.

(A quick disclaimer here to note that my husband, while possessing many manly traits, is not one of those men who relishes sweating with thousands of strangers.)

Still, all that was fine and he even managed to squeeze in a trip to Culver’s for one of their famous butterburgers (OK, tasty, but they’ve got to change the name). The part that had him complaining later was what he considered rude behavior by the players.

(Another disclaimer here to note that my husband, while perfectly secure in his own right, still has a bit of a problem every time an athlete of even superb ability turns down a multi-gajillion dollar contract to sign one for 10 bucks more. I’ve tried to explain the concept of fair market value to him but he doesn’t want to listen.)

The main objective today, besides eating butterburgers and watching the Bears run through drills from a vantage point in which he could only see quarterback Jay Cutler’s socks, was to help the boys get autographs.

He didn’t really even have to help, just mostly point them in the right direction and make sure they didn’t get trampled in the process.

His opinion is that this is a spectator-friendly event. Fans attend for free. There are interactive games for kids to play. Adequate parking. And there really is plenty of space to watch practice (I, personally, do not think he had to watch Jay Cutler’s socks and could have tried harder to improve his vantage point).

There is also lots of room to spread out along the ropes where players leave the field and try to collect autographs. The Bears even set up a special autograph area for kids 12-and-under, where players have to pass through to leave the field.

But in the 45 minutes Rick spent observing, only a handful (maybe five or six) of the 78 players on the field bothered – and this is a direct quote from Rick –  “to pause long enough to smile, say ‘hi,’ wave or high-five, much less sign an autograph.”

Many ran past the kids. “Couldn’t they have just slapped hands or something while they ran past?” Rick suggested.

New Bears quarterback Jay Cutler sped by in his golf cart, though I don’t think he can technically be ripped for speeding since he was not driving.

“All the kids were fenced in this special area,” Rick said. “All they really wanted was to be acknowledged.”

If I didn’t think he would turn cranky, I might suggest to my husband that most probably expected more than an acknowledgement, but I agree that a passing wave would’ve been nice.

All that said, there were some very nice players, the names of whom did not surprise me. Tight end Dez Clark, who had his adorable little girls with him, still signed autographs for at least 20 minutes. Running back Kevin Jones took off his cleats and tossed them to two grateful kids (I’m assuming cleat side up as Rick did not mention any bloodshed). Alex Brown was terrific, giving Alec’s friend Joe the thrill of a lifetime when he handed him his sweaty, practice-used glove, complete with autograph (Joe does not have the same aversion to other people’s sweat as Rick does).

Joe also finagled an Adewale Ogunleye signature for their pal Jake. And third-string quarterback Brett Basanez spent considerable time signing autographs, among them for Alec and Zack, and perhaps introducing himself to the kids in the process.

In my opinion, roughly six percent of the team was not a bad turnout. But Rick is not buying it.

He may be a good sport, but he’s a tough customer.

I went on TV tonight and lied.

OK, not really lied. But when Elizabeth Brackett asked me on Chicago Tonight if I was shocked when I heard that Chicago Blackhawks’ star Patrick Kane had been arrested after allegedly robbing and beating a 62-year-old cabdriver in an early morning dispute in Buffalo Sunday, I first babbled about how as a sportswriter, you’re never really shocked when an incident like this happens regarding a professional athlete but that yes, it was surprising given that Kane did not seem to fit that profile.

Surprising? I’m surprised I tempered my comments when, in fact, my reaction when my 11-year-old son’s friend texted him about Kane was something like, “WHAT? NO WAY? Little Patrick? I don’t believe it.” I may have even thrown a “My God” in there.

As if it was my cute little blond nephew was the one who got pinched.

And that’s the point.

Was I shocked because Patrick Kane looks like my nephew? Was it because I felt like I knew him after visiting his childhood home in Buffalo a few years ago, went to lunch with his parents and ate Patrick’s favorite spaghetti at their favorite restaurant? Or was it because I stood in his bedroom and looked at his little bed with the hockey blanket and pillows and trophies neatly arranged on shelves above it, and plaques and pictures on the walls?

Was I just as shocked when the allegations came out earlier this summer about Bulls’ star Derrick Rose cheating on his college entrance exams, and a photo circulated on the Internet with him at a college party, flashing gang signs? (He later said he was just fooling around.)

I am not suggesting that those allegations are as serious as what Kane is charged with. But it’s hard not to compare the two. Both are their team’s and their league’s top draft picks; both are 20 years old (Rose is six weeks older) and both, I had deduced through interviewing and observing them, are seemingly good kids with good intentions.

I know I would have been just as shocked if Rose was arrested on felony charges. But I also know that when I blogged about Rose a couple months ago that I was suspicious of him, even as I repeated allegations for which there was no proof.

I rationalized that my suspicions stemmed from being burned by athletes’ transgressions before, athletes whom I also initially believed and trusted. I wrote that I didn’t really know Rose at all.

And so as I sit here, my TV makeup coagulating in my pores because I know how long it will take me to scrub it off and I want to get my thoughts down, I have no thoughts. At least not any that make sense.

Am I racist or is this the proverbial white liberal guilt kicking in?

Would I have jumped all over Rose if he had been in this situation when I find myself wanting to giving Kane the benefit of the doubt and hoping that there is an explanation that will at least make it all a little more palpable?

Do I know Patrick Kane any better than Derrick Rose because I stood in Patrick’s bedroom with his parents and looked at his little trophies, and Rose’s mother did not want to be interviewed.

I wrote that I wanted to believe Rose when he said he didn’t cheat. I still do. It will be harder to buy anything Kane says but I still want to – particularly when the last time I had a conversation with his father several months ago, he said his wife was “mad” at Patrick for playing with his mouthpiece instead of wearing it like he was supposed to when he crashed into a teammates and cracked his front teeth.

When I heard the news Sunday, I pictured his parents grounding him.

There was a time when a hockey player going out, getting drunk and maybe even hitting a cabdriver would not have created the scandal it does today. Maybe we’re more civilized. Or maybe it’s because we pay athletes millions of dollars to  perform on the athletic field but also to be the face of their franchise.   

Maybe it’s because we expect more from them.

Even when they seem to disappoint us so damn often.

Went to my high school reunion last night.

Very interesting.

A former classmate and friend who we will call “Tony” because that’s what we agreed his pretend name would be (his real name is Bob), accused me of going only to collect blog material.

This is only partially true.

I went hoping to collect blog material.

No, that’s not true either.

Actually, I didn’t want to go at all because I felt slightly fat and am very insecure, but my husband said, “If nothing else, maybe you’ll get a good blog out of it” as if this is a dealmaker for everything these days.

I don’t know too many people except perhaps the Homecoming Queen – and ours did not come – who do not feel at least a tad apprehensive about going to their high school reunion. Either that or just ambivalent, the reasoning that “Anyone I want to see, I still keep in touch with, so why go see people I wasn’t even really friends with 30 years ago?”

But I can say this morning with full conviction and only a teeny hangover from my two free drinks that I am glad I went. Very glad. Because here’s what happens or at least happened to me.

All those people who you never kept in touch with or maybe weren’t even friends with? There’s still a connection, a really cool connection when you get 100 or so people into a room all born in the same year (accept for this one guy in a Bergundy sports jacket whom nobody knew and all suspected he wandered in thinking it was the ’69 Niles West class reunion by mistake).

In the case of Niles West -- and I’m sure most high schools unless you live on the prairie -- several suburbs and junior highs fed into the school. So I had two experiences last night. One was with all the Lincolnwood “kids” I’ve known since kindergarten (the Wooders) and the other was with the kids from Morton Grove, the other predominant suburb feeding into Niles West (the Grovers).

Though I had a wonderful time seeing the Grovers and later bragged that I was one of the few Wooders who crossed over at the reunion and had a great time talking to them (even “Tony”), it was especially fun with the Wooders (I’m sure the Grovers felt this way as well).

Mind you once again, these were not people with whom I have shared a bond for the 30-plus years since. In fact, one good friend from grade school whose name I can’t use for many reasons I couldn’t possibly go into (we’ll call her “Susie” because those are the names we all have – normal girl names like Susie and Debbie and Nancy and Julie and Lisa and Karen, even Karyn – and NOT Carson and Dakota and Winter), asked me why we never talked to each other after junior high.

Because I’m me, I was instantly mortified, assuming I did or said something terrible to her (this was not my normal behavior but we’re talking about 13-year-old girls here and this is a wild and wonderful and truly evil age).

“Susie” quickly assured me I did nothing of the kind but that I just “disappeared” in high school. I assured her that I was in the gym if anyone was looking, and that I thought everyone else disappeared in high school.

Same thing with my kindergarten boyfriend Michael. I loved Michael. Adored him. We both shared a similar speech impediment and a love for Romper Room (or was that my kindergarten boyfriend Howard? I got around in kindergarten).

Anyway, when I asked another classmate Steve, if he knew who the bald guy on the dance floor was, he told me it was Michael. My Michael. I immediately ditched Steve and sprinted toward Michael – or the bald guy I thought was Michael – only to find it was Jimmy, a Grover who did not know me and seemed slightly alarmed. But NEXT to Jimmy was my Michael, also bald (sorry, Michael but you are -- shaved head not balding, so I can say this without feeling badly because I think he knows).

There was something weird and wonderful about the kindergarten thing last night. I must have talked to a half-dozen people from Miss Tatz’s kindergarten class, all of whom had vivid memories of it. I’m pretty sure it was because Miss Tatz was not a normal kindergarten teacher but a Playboy bunny posing as a kindergarten teacher. The boys, even at five, had wild crushes on her and the girls all wanted her white Go-Go boots, micro-mini skirts and fishnet panty hose. Yes, she wore these to school – also brought her Lhasa Apso one day – which I suspect is why I don’t think she had a long teaching career.

My friend Kathy remembered asking her mother for fishnet pantyhose like Miss Tatz and getting rebuffed (her mom was strict). I begged for white go-go boots and my mother finally relented. But shortly after I put them on, I fell down the stairs and that was the end of the Go-Go boots.

 I also had another memory of kindergarten I did not share with Michael. Mind you, I do not remember extremely important adult things most of the time, but I do recall that in Miss Tatz’s room, we had a large gray tub of cardboard blocks that looked like red bricks. And I remember that one day, Michael and I were inside the tub flinging them around the room.

When Miss Tatz looked up at the precise time I was flinging, she made me put my head down (which was extremely traumatic, particularly since it meant I had to miss Show-and-Tell and I had a really good thing to show and tell about that day). But first she asked me why I did such a thing. Naturally, I replied “Because Michael told me to,” and she said, “If Michael told you to jump in Lake Michigan, would you?” and I said, in a very tiny voice, “Yes” because I would have.

Of course, I shared none of this with Michael either then or last night because I was busy babbling about Romper Room and other things that men never remember. In fact, I am reasonably sure most of the men in the room didn’t remember high school, let alone their hot kindergarten teachers (except for Steve, he still remembers Miss Tatz in a slightly creepy way).

But all things considered, it was a really fun reunion, even considering that it cost $77 and all we got was cheese and crackers and taffy apples because one of our classmates has a taffy apple company (which was a very nice perk) and the two free drinks.

But we left with much more. At least I did. By 47 and 48, people mature (with a few exceptions). There was no high school pettiness, no cliques, only the camaraderie of a group of people who shared our childhoods together, who know things about you that very few people outside the room do and who, at least for a few hours one Saturday night, believed we were all great friends.

Except for that guy in the Burgundy sports jacket. I’m still not sure about him.