More reports from the suburban trenches.

We went today to Grace's elementary school for the 60th anniversary celebration. It was a slightly teeth-gritting experience, as these things tend to be: long on small-town nostalgia, slightly short on interesting content for the non-alum. Moment One: as we're walking there (having parked in the downtown area and walked, per our instructions), we encountered a group of four or five men who were enthusiastic members of the class of 1974. Now, this is an *elementary* school, so by my calculation they were about 12 in 1974, making them now in their mid-forties. One of them was taking pictures to commemorate the big "reunion" and asked us if we were headed there, and I said yes, so he included us in the big group shot. Despite us not, you know, knowing them. Their conversation was peppered with descriptions of a couple of moms I know as "the best chicks" back in the day. Oh, my.

Moment Two: the stage for the "program," because of course ther'e's gotta be one, included a group of folks right out of central casting. There's the genial local weather guy, on hand as the celebrity alum; there's the superintendent (I think) who insisted on being called "Doctor" and who gave a mini-lecture on pedagogy that the weather guy teased her was an imitation of Oprah; there's the overly tanned, overly blond wife of a former student, mother to several more, apparently a former PTA queen whose zenith in life was to be a member of the state legislature. There's the hugely pregnant assistant to the local mayor, there to read the town council's proclamation of this hallowed occasion, who manages to make her own pregnancy seem patriotic in her brief remarks about family and community; finally, there were several former principals and a former superintendant, who got huge applause from the crowd, many of whom were still intimidated by their long-past authority. The weather guy noted that he couldn't call his former principal by first name, but could call the current principal by hers, since they were elementary school classmates! And so it comes full circle.

The best part of the "program" by far was a group of about six or seven former students whose 5th-grade choir had attained local fame by being selected to perform at the visiting production of Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat. This was 15 years ago, but they and their former music teacher really did it up right in an encore performance. I can't quite picture myself performing at a gathering at my elementary school when *I* was 26, but then, I don't sing. They did a nice job, somewhat overshadowing the current 5th-grade choir, who performed gamely but looked a little hot in their uniforms and intimidated by the crowd.

Lest I sound like a total Scrooge, we did stay for a couple of hours, chatted with friends, ate cake, and had a nice time. But oy, vey: other people's nostalgia.

In utterly unrelated images, Mulch! Mulch with kid! And Peter with the fabulous Dorothy.