I got my third and supposedly final notice today. If I don’t send the Jefferson Parish Public School District (care of Harris Connect) my biographical information, I may not be correctly represented in the Riverdale High School graduate directory! I have inexplicably failed to respond to the first two notices.

(Yes, I graduated from Riverdale High School. No, I did not know Archie, Jughead, Betty, or Veronica. They ran in a totally different crowd, although Reggie was in a friend of mine’s Spanish class.)

I apologize to any other alumni out there who are depending on the graduate directory to be 100% error-free, but I’m thinking I won’t be replying this time either. Are there really people over the age of, say, 21, who keep an active interest in their high school? Two years ago would have been my 20th reunion. I can’t even begin to conceive of the idea of attending such a thing. It would make about as much sense as attending a reunion of people who all happened to be shopping at the same grocery store one day two decades ago.

I’m not talking about the hoary old, “Oh, high school was hell and I couldn’t wait to get out etc” line. High school was neither awesome nor tragic for me; it just was. I had it to do, I did it, and then it was done. I don’t look back on it fondly or harshly; except for when I get notices like this, I don’t really look back on it at all. I had some friends, sure, though largely they were people thrown into the same island of misfit toys as myself. I can count on the fingers of one hand how many people I knew in high school that I have still maintained contact with, and you could add a couple of them that I am kind of genuinely curious about to those and still not need another hand for more fingers. I can’t say I haven’t at times wandered over to one of those classmates sites and poked around, but even if there was someone there that I found and communicated with, what on Earth would I say? “Hi! Twenty years ago we were in fairly close proximity! Tell me about your life since then!”

Since high school was also the time I was into computer BBSes, a lot of my friends weren’t even at my high school. My girlfriend at the time wasn’t either. So a lot of memories I have of that time, of friends and fun don’t even really concern the actual institutional learning facility or those within it.

So, sorry about that, Riverdale High School alums. Your graduate directory may not list complete and current biographical information for me. You’ll have to somehow muddle through without it, or do a Google search for “Dave Lartigue” and dear god, get far more information on me that you can imagine anyone wanting.