My High School Reunion
by Wm. G. Thilgen Jr. (Billl)
My High School Reunion
by Wm. G. Thilgen Jr. (Billl)
edited by Patte
Copyright © 2012 by Wm. G. Thilgen Jr. (Billl)
All rights reserved.
Dedicated
To the class of 1967,
Moose and everyone who knows him.
Foreword
William Guy Thilgen Jr. (Billl) is a 64 year young retired former native of St. Paul, Minnesota U.S.A. commonly known as the Twin Cities. Now living in Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico. William is the middle child of seven, with three older half- sisters, two younger brothers and a baby sister.
Prior to his retirement, he followed in his grandfather's footsteps as a professional truck driver. A career that allowed him to see parts of the country, taste various foods and to partake in a variety of adventures whenever he would happen across them. During those years he considered himself to be a professional tourist.
As an interstate truck driver he spent a lot of time driving from here to there and back again. He had many long hours with nothing to do but gaze out the windshield and watch the world go by. Some drivers, not all, would occupy their time by listening to the conventional AM/FM radio or their audio tape machines (CD players had not yet been invented). Some, not all, would spend time talking on the citizen band radio, aka CB. William was one of those drivers.
William attributes his imagination and story-telling ability to the fact that, like most children during his youth, he grew up in a large family in a small house with no room to play indoors. Most children of that era grew up playing outdoors. He and his friends would spend hours and hours outside finding things to do, and on occasion making up our own adventures.
As he aged he came to view life as series of adventures. It was on one such adventure in the winter of 1994;
He met Patte!
Preface
After high school most students grow up and put the experience behind them.
This is a story of a couple of individuals that seemingly did not.
My High School Reunion
A couple of years ago, I received an invitation to attend my 30th high school reunion. The secretary of the 1967 student council addressed it. I did not recognize the name so I dug out my old high school yearbook and looked up it up. As I was doing so and as one might expect, I started to reminisce about some of those old days. All the different memories seemed to fill my head and caused me more than ever to look forward to the upcoming class reunion.
A couple of weeks later as I walked up to the registration booth, I was bombarded by hello's and found it quite amazing that so many people still recognized me after so many years. Moreover, had it not been for the little tour I took of my old yearbook, I might not have done the same with most of their names. I'm sure they must have done the same. It was quite pleasant meeting everyone again and asking the standard "Do you remember so and so?" and "What-cha doing now?" questions.
It was all going on without a hitch until I happened across an old flame of mine. She had belonged to another and my love for her was never to be. Her boy friend at the time was the 6 foot 6 inch tall 225 pound center of our high school football team; he had the nickname Moose. I am sure you know the type. As I gazed upon her from across the room, I could not help remembering a fateful night so many years ago.
One night after a football game that did not go well for our side. The team had to stay and go over all the things they did wrong during the game. Knowing that the coach was going to take awhile to go over everything, Moose asked me to drive his girlfriend home. He knew it would be a cordial ride because if it were not, I would surely die.
WELL, if things could go wrong, they did. On the way to her house, it started to rain, it was a bit slippery going around one corner I slip a bit which caused me to hit the curb and blow out a tire. If that was not enough, I did not have a spare, so I had to set out and find one. That took a couple of hours.
After fixing the tire we started along our way once again. Then the worst thing happened, I ran out of gas. Back in the day, gas stations were not open all night, the game was over at 8:30 PM, I had to fix the tire, now it was past 11:00, and I had to find some gas. The only station that was open that late was two miles away. After walking there and then back again it was way past midnight. I finished adding the gas and when we proceeded to her house.
She lived almost ten miles from school, at the end of a country road. We were within  half mile of her house when lightning felled a tree and it blocked the road to her house. Now remember, it was raining and really dark on that country road. She did not want to walk the rest of the way by herself, so I did the gentlemanly thing and escorted her the rest of the way on foot.
When we finally arrived at her house, it was past one in the morning and her mom and dad met us at the door very worried. Moose had called a couple of times and informed them that I was bringing her home and if I knew what was good for me, she would get home unharmed and be no worse for the wear. We looked like a couple of drowned rats, and after listening to our story and considering how late it was, her parents insisted that I get into some dry clothes and spend the rest of the night on their living room couch.
Morning came. We had breakfast and proceeded back to my car so we could go to school. Unknown to her, I was trying to figure out how we were going to arrive without the attention of any of the other students. Somehow, we managed to get into school and to our separate homerooms without anyone seeing that I had driven Moose's girlfriend to school. It was a big load off my mind; I did not want to have to explain to anyone anything that had happened the night before. I especially did not want to have to explain it to Moose!
The day was going really well until lunch, and then it happened. I was sitting with a few of my friends in the schools cafeteria along with the rest of the students, when Moose's girlfriend came over and for what reasons I will never know, thanked me for the ride to school. She added, "I hope you enjoyed the breakfast my mom made this morning!" Then she said, "Considering everything that happened last night, I slept really well!" and asked if I did also.
Well, you could have heard a pin drop from 30 feet away. Everyone around had heard her say it. My friends all looked at another and then stood there gazing at me with their mouths wide open. The other students that had been standing nearby and overheard her were also looking and, almost in unison, everyone said;
"YOU, ARE GOING, TO DIE!"
I am not sure just how I managed to avoid Moose the rest of the year but I did. It was our senior year of high school and afterwords, I was drafted into the Army and moved away. It was then that I lost touch with everyone. Until I received the invitation to this reunion, I had pretty much put high school and that fateful evening behind me.
As I was standing around, I heard a bit of commotion coming from outside the hotel where we were. All of a sudden, one of my old pals rushed over to me and said that Moose was outside and would like to see me. I asked what all the commotion was about and he tried to remind me as best he could remember of the time at the lunch table and said that Moose was probably still ticked off. I thought to myself, no way. It has been 30 years; surely he must have found out there was nothing to that evening I took his girlfriend home.
I went outside to see if what my friend had to say was for real; I could not believe Moose was still ticked after all these years. As I stood in the doorway of the hotel, I could see him sitting in a car: Moose, looking like the rest of us, a little older but still big as a mountain, was accompanied by two other fellows that were just as big and mean-looking as he.
They all started getting out of the car and Moose was in the lead. He pointed at me and
said, I have something for you and I have been waiting 30 years to do it.
Well, I am not one to look for trouble and I am not crazy enough to stay around when I see it coming. I turned around and took off back into the hotel. I knew there had to be another exit.
As I got to my car, I could see that Moose had followed me through the hotel and out the same exit. I managed to start my car and take off before he and his two friends got to me. I was driving along the freeway on my way home when I saw Moose's auto coming up behind me.
He was going considerably faster than I was and soon caught up. I figured he would just follow me along tooting and waving at me for a while having his fun at causing me such discomfort after all these years and then he'd go home or something.
All of a sudden, he sped up and rammed the back of my car. He chased me down the freeway for some time, changing lanes when I did and cutting off people just to try to get ahead of me so he could pull me over. After he rammed into me several more times, I realized; This is getting me nowhere, so I sped up and lost him momentarily on an exit ramp. I thought I had ducked him until I saw his car come through the highways guard rail and down the embankment towards me.
I decided to flee on foot into a nearby grocery store. Fortunately, the store was almost vacant because as I was looking for the back door I heard a crashing sound and saw Moose and his friends driving through the plate glass window of the storefront. I couldn't believe it. I continued to run out the back door and on into a hamburger joint across the street.
Moose left his car in the grocery store and proceeded to follow me into the hamburger joint, ranting and raving, yelling at me to stop, and shouting that if I knew what was good for me, I had better do it quick.
He was crazy; knocking people out of the way and scaring some of the children he passed as all three of them chased me. I managed to skirt my way around the salad bar and, avoiding them once more, I ran back out to the street, wondering which way I should go. Starting to run out of energy, I knew I had to do something soon or he was going to get me.
I ran through several yards and through a number of bushes, tearing my suit along the way. I was starting to look a bit haggard when I spotted a police station. All the time Moose was closing in on me. I figured there was no way he would chase me in there and if he did (I hoped) the cops would get him.
With my last bit of energy, I bolted into the police station and, to my surprise Moose and his friends followed suit. I was yelling for help at the top of my lungs and, just as the officers started to gather around, Moose caught me. I yelled, I screamed, and with tears in my eyes, I begged and I pleaded;
Please Moose, Don't Kill Me!
Picking me up with one hand and reaching way back with his other, Moose said It has taken me 30 years to finally catch up to you and now that I've got your attention; Would you please, sign my year book?