Last month I received a postcard from a locating firm notifying me that a formal invitation to my 45th high school class reunion would be forthcoming.  A few days ago the invitation arrived along with a questionnaire.

The questionnaire committee requests personal biographical info and highlights of my post-high school life in a space that is designed for 25 words or less.  As a writer, I don't even get warmed up until about the 419th word. 

Other questions include:

• What was your favorite high school hangout?

• What were the coolest clothes to wear?

• What was your favorite parking spot?

• Which teacher had the biggest impact on your life?

• What was your most memorable high school incident?

I took my memory out for a long jog and returned -- not very out of breath for an old guy, I'm happy to report -- with most of the answers.

• After school I hung out at Guys 'n Dolls Billiards Parlor. 

• Cool clothing included tapered-leg black slacks with ankle-high Beatle boots.

• My favorite parking spot was The Moorings, a public bay-front marina with a huge parking lot that was supposed to be closed after dark. 

• Miss M.G. Smith, Chairperson of the English Department and my creative writing teacher, was the teacher who imparted the most usable knowledge. Miss Smith continues to be an inspiration to this day.

There was little hesitation in the scribbling of these answers.  However, that most memorable incident question is a toughie because it was an incident-a-day for me back then.  Also, I sense that the factoid compilers are looking for well-witnessed incidents that occurred during the school day or at some school function and, like many kids, I tried to do as little as I could get away with during the school day and saved my best moves for later.

And to whom should these answers be memorable -- to me; classmates; the principal; all of the above?

It is memorable to me that on October 17, 1965 I was not ordered to serve detention from 3:05 PM to 3:50 PM.  It was the only day of my entire high school career that I received a detention bye.  All of the forced quietude I was made to endure in the detention hall completely ruined me for future participation in stress-reduction, meditation and yoga programs.  Enough quiet contemplation to last a lifetime had been completed long before the diplomas were handed out on June 23, 1966.

It was memorable when Billy Gossweiler and I rigged-up the stage microphone at the annual class talent show so that only what we were playing on a tape recorder backstage was audible over the PA system.  We had invented a kind of primitive, bizarre reverse-karaoke deal.  It is especially memorable to Bill and me that we never got caught.

It was memorable when I ran interference for Richie Skolnick at the senior prom while he vodka-spiked the fruit punch,  Even more memorable, on prom night, was my virtual recreation of the James Brown concert I had attended the weekend before the prom. 

Perhaps it was precipitated by the boozy punch, but it is likely that I would have reenacted the show for my friends anyway.  I wore those smooth-soled patent leather shoes with the premeditated notion of slippin' and slidin'. And on prom night I actually wore a better tux, albeit a rental unit, than any of the ones the Godfather of Soul had perspired through at the concert.  Mine was a red brocade job with black satin lapels and a matching cummerbund that even my soul-less date, Louise the Tease, said "looked dapper".  Nonetheless, my dapperness was not nearly enough to get her to go to The Moorings after the prom.

It is memorable recalling the time that I donned the one-strap, off-the-shoulder leopard skin and jumped on a Flintstones float in the annual cross-town rivalry pre-football game parade.  For over an hour as Fred Flintstone (it was the year that the cartoon series had its prime time debut and it became TV's hottest sitcom) I screamed yabba dabba doooooo from one end of town to the other.  It was a freezing November morning and I was underdressed for the weather but there was one wonderful perk.  I got to snuggle with Jeanette Diehl, the sweet, gorgeous prom queen who, that morning, was similarly attired for the role of my wife, Wilma.

When Jeanette shivered: "Ccccccould you pppplease share some bbbbody heat with me Ed?" I was able to develop quite a bit of it for her rather quickly.  And I was not about to quit bear-hugging Jeanette until our float ride ended at the neutral Firemen's Field.  It was my one big chance with the best-looking girl at school and I blew it by romantically whispering "yabba dabba doo" in her lovely ear.

Here's a memorable one.  In our junior year I cut a class the day before the aforementioned annual big game and got a ride with a senior named Bobby Ballough in his '50 Ford.  While everyone at each identical school building was in their fourth period classes I painted a North High green stripe down the center of South High's third floor hallway. By the time the deed was discovered I had already returned to North High and was ready for my fifth period class.  Most people knew that I was the painter because Ballough blabbed to his friends but somehow, I never got caught for that one either.

But even with my memory bank now freely spitting out withdrawals, the most memorable incident line on the questionnaire remains blank.

As a car guy I should have a driving story for every occasion -- which I usually do -- but I was the youngest student in our class as a result of skipping the third grade.  I didn't receive my license until just a few days before graduation so, ironically, I don't have a high school driving history.  But I was involved in a Driver Education class driving incident.

Actually, now that I recall it, we may have a winner here.  This one's a classic!

Coach Fleming was our Driver Ed instructor.  He and I got along well because I was motivated, since birth, to become a great driver.  I relished every aspect of the training course and got A's from the coach.

Our regular practice car was a brand new 1966 Plymouth Fury with the 383-cubic inch engine, automatic transmission and a dual braking system that allowed the instructor to override the student.  But we also had a single-brake '65 Fury with the 318 engine and a three on the tree steering column-mounted shifter that was used to teach manual-shift driving. 

One springy morning it was my turn behind the wheel of the latter Fury.  Coach Fleming was edgy because the girl who drove before me, Diane Schiavone, was terrible with the clutch.  In the absence of seatbelts, she nearly launched the coach through the windshield several times before he told her to pull over and get in the back seat.

But I was Mr. Smooth and was able to settle Coach Fleming's nerves very quickly.  In fact, it was so relaxing for him out there on Franklin Avenue with me at the controls that for a moment no one was paying attention to my driving.  No one, that is, except Officer Knowles in Patrol Car #507.

Knowles, who was parked in front of Carroll's Hamburger Drive-in sucking down a vanilla shake at the time, noticed the Fury going by at 68 in 45 mph zone.  The electric bubblegum machine atop his Ford Galaxy 500 cruiser lit up surprisingly quickly.  After a brief hot pursuit, I was finally caught -- VERY CAUGHT -- for once in my high school career.

Of course, I received a stern lecture from Knowles at the scene of the crime.  It was not my first encounter with the officer because he seemed to always be around to bust up our Friday night "loitering" out in front of Louie Nadler's luncheonette -- so I kind of knew what to expect from the menacing Officer Knowles.  Coach Fleming, however, was quite upset when he was issued my speeding citation because he was the only one in the car who actually had a license and he was responsible for the rest of us.
 

After convincing a priest, a rabbi, Miss M.G. Smith and a state senator's secretary to call police headquarters on behalf of Coach Fleming I was finally able to get his ticket squashed.  Then I volunteered for what they now call community service.

The next Saturday I washed every blackboard in the entire school building, detailed both Driver Ed cars and clapped out dozens of chalkboard erasers, ending my workday by sanding splinters off the bleacher benches in the gym.

I have never attended a high school reunion and I may not go to this one.

It would be really embarrassing if, after 45 years, anyone at the reunion remembers that I was an underachiever in high school.