Patricia, not going to her high school reunion
My BFF from West Fargo High School is not going to her high school reunion on Friday.
I told Patricia about the reunion about a month ago on the phone. It was news to her and she lives a lot closer to Fargo than I do!
“How do you know about it?” she asked.
“Kirk read about it in the Sunday Fargo Forum. He told me. And the ad said to tell people and I’m telling you. It’s September 18th. You should go!” I said.
It sounded to me like she was eating pickles, sour ones.
“Really!” I said. “You’d have fun!”
“I’ll go if you go,” she said.
“Why should I go? It’s not my class.”
“So what! You knew lots of those people,” she said. (That’s what my brother, Kirk, said too when I asked him why he was telling me about it. But I didn’t tell her that.)
Breaking the rules is nothing new to her (or Kirk, for that matter). Me? I’m more timid! I’m sure there’d be a bouncer. He’d card me and then kick me out.
Please, just go to the reunion
She’s a year older and a lot bolder.
If Fargo, North Dakota was easier to get to, I might do it, just to get her there.
We had a two-hour phone conversation a few days ago, on Sunday.
I brought it up again.
“Are you going to the reunion on Friday!?”
No reaction…again.
I guess I’m not surprised. She’s busy. She has crops to harvest, lots of them. She’s a volunteer with a vested interest in the Food Farm in Wrenshall, Minnesota, thirty minutes south of Duluth where she lives. (Check out their link if you want to see some beautiful looking cabbages!)
Food Farm onions drying out for winter storage
Saturday was the Harvest Fest, right down the hill from where she lives. It’s held at the Bayfront Festival Park right on the edge of Lake Superior in Duluth. She was there hocking wares and getting people interested in signing up for winter shares in their CSA (Community Supported Agriculture).
What was notable and what she wanted to share with me (enough of this reunion talk!) was that she was wearing Mother’s red clip-on earrings that day. Besides Maggan in Sweden, Patricia has a pair or two of Mother’s clip-on earrings from the 1950s. “I’ll send you a picture,” she said.
“Pretty good looking garlic” I thought when I got the photo. But I also thought, how cute can you be! She’s a farmer and she has great style!
I had to know about the rest of the outfit
She was wearing blue jeans and a Food Farm T-shirt that she’d altered by cutting the collar, sleeves and bottom off. (Of course! Take a scissor to the T-shirt and cut it up! We all do that, right?)
“The T-shirt was black with red lettering. I put one of my Icebreaker layering pieces underneath it, the one with the red and black sleeves. Someone thought it came that way and wanted a T-shirt just like mine! Then I added a red belt and my red shoes. I decided to stick with the red accents.”
She’d recently cut her hair shorter. She said, “This hat I’ve had, but it looked weird when I got my hair cut. When I put it on you couldn’t see hair. I thought, I’ll just stick it back farther so you can see I have hair. It was fun. I liked wearing Alma’s earrings.”
Yup, it’s fun alright–which is why I wanted her to go to her high school reunion! Take some of that fun to West Fargo!
But she’s staying put. There are all those cabbages and carrots and potatoes that need her attention.
She said, “When I farm such long hours, I feel like a crash test dummy when I get home. I don’t feel like doing other things.”
Hard, physical labor, often times ten or eleven hours a day right now, leaves her hurting on her days off.
Patricia’s style words
It’s hard to look at that picture of her and think of her being tired.
Her personal style gives a different message. I tried to label it. “Spunky, sassy and in your face.”
She said, “Yup, that’s pretty much it!”
No reason you can’t go to your high school reunion
So even though Patricia is not going to her high school reunion (where she’d have had so much fun), it doesn’t mean you have to miss yours.
Stay tuned! Next blog post, coming right up:
How to get dressed for your high school reunion.
I’ve got seven very important fashion tips for you. Patricia won’t listen, but maybe you will! Talk to you soon!
6 Comments
Bodie
September 17, 2015 at 12:13 pmPatricia looks lovely, but you know what her best accessory is? Apart from your Mother’s clip ons; that wonderful smile! She obviously loves what she does, and I have to agree with her, I would NEVER go to a school reunion!
Brenda
September 18, 2015 at 9:54 amYou’re right about that smile! And her laugh is infectious too!
Stevie
September 18, 2015 at 9:14 amI just had a college girlfriend’s reunion. One of the friends is from Fargo and she had just organized her HS reunion. She came from that to ours. I had also just had mine and came from mine to the college one. You never know what you will find when you go to your reunion and much of it will surprise you. But the bottom line is that it’s wonderful to see old friends and chat with people you weren’t friends with in HS. You never know what new friends you might make!
Brenda
September 18, 2015 at 9:53 amLove hearing this! You make a great point too–about discovering the people you hadn’t discovered when you were living those years. Thanks for the encouragement to all!
Marcia Miller
September 28, 2015 at 8:24 amBrenda, I too am a pusher of reunions. I always encourage people to go. They give me such joy. I understand that others do not find them as fun or as important but …
Even if you don’t want to go and see people, there are always people who want to see YOU. You just never know what connections you might make.
Brenda
September 28, 2015 at 10:07 amI like your point of view hadn’t thought of it. If our class ever gets it together to have a reunion, I think I’ll go!