The first challenge of course was the jokes. They had to be drawn from the “shared” parts of community; from the common experiences of growing up in this particular midwestern town of 1,200 residents.

And the jokes had to bridge the gap of time. They had to not just be funny to me or my classmates from 1996, but they had to be funny to people who attended the high school much later than I did.

Pressure, anyone?

I settled in on a couple jokes about my brother, a member of the high school teaching staff (Sorry, Dave). Since he now works at the high school and lives extremely closeby, he was an easy target when challenging the grads to go “farther” (in the literal sense) than he did.

I also delivered a series of jokes about the almost non-existent crime rate in our town.

If the statistics available are right, they factor to about a 1/2 % crime rate. So I theorized that whoever was going to commit the town’s big crime for the year was probably in the gymnasium as I spoke (since in order for the gym to be full, the whole town has to basically be there). And I challenged the grads that if they saw someone trying to make a quick exit to go rob all the empty houses in town that they should tackle them and thus become the only 18 year old in the U.S. to wipe out a year’s worth of crime in their hometown.

I held my breath as I delivered them, relieved only when the gym erupted in laughter after each cue.

And as they laughed, I thought to myself, that only someone raised in this little town would understand these jokes. That even a more skillful speaker, a more famous author, who had not lived here would not have been able to pull them off. It was necessary for a speaker–on this occasion–to “get” what it was like growing up here.

This stuff had to come from “one of us”.

And in the back of my mind I reflected this is why God sent Jesus to be born into a human town, to be raised here as a man and to share so many common human experiences. He had to get it what its like growing up here on earth.

What he had to say would only make sense if it came from one of us.

That is why its so important that all of us are a part of our local community, don’t you think? No matter what opportunities God gives us, we have to keep one hand on “homebase” so that we maintain our sense of connection to culture. This is what gives us credibility in our local sphere and also what teaches us the skills needed when we communicate on larger platforms (on the internet or via bigger opportunities outside our locale).

So what about you? What do you do to make sure you stay connected to your community?

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You can’t dine out without running into at least one of the restaurant stereotypes: The fighting couple–arguing in hushed civil tones, but feigning bliss each time the waitress stops by to offer refills. The people with the colicky infant–the one who inspire the rest of the patrons to chip in for a baby-sitter. Then, there’s the uncharacteristically loud table–the group who seems to think they are at a live comedy show rather than a civil evening of dining out.

Last night, I admit it, I was part of the loud table. Old ladies who cut their meat properly would’ve been appalled.


But this is a special group of diners, who are a little out of the norm downing enchiladas ordered from menus, seeing that most of their meals together have involved circular wood-paneled tables, dark orange plastic chairs and faded green lunch trays loaded with culinary delicacies like Walking Tacos and Chocolate Milk.


After all that conditioning yelling across cafeterias, yes, the volume of this table of adults may have erred on the side of loud, may have been uncharacteristically punctuated by group laughter. (Keep in mind, well mannered old women, that these are people who graduated when the Macarena and Hootie and the Blow Fish’s Only Wanna Be With You were still on the top 100 chart. So keep your expectations in perspective.)


Its not that we didn’t have a ten year class reunion or that we’re not going to have a fifteen. Its that we come from the same place: a little dot (or more like lack of dot) on the map where only a few people grew up and we happen to be amongst the few–so there’s a built in camaraderie that doesn’t have to be locked into formal anniversaries of our graduation. Sometimes the best occasion is that we happen to be getting tired of reading status updates on facebook (you have three children? four? who can keep up?) and its okay to let one thing lead to another.


A lot has changed since our senior class trip to Toronto (where we decided what happened in Toronto must stay in Toronto). People have gone to school now, established careers, found and lost lovers, reproduced…some of them at record speed.

And yet, there are still common threads–the daily juggling of work and children, the processing of disappointment and loss, the inordinate number of calls to poison control as we are now the parents who must navigate each time children down plants or vitamins or toilet bowl residue.


The night reminded me of a quote I heard in the Jane Austen Book Club. A character named Prudie is filling her husband in on her background with a high school enemy. To which her husband says, “Prudie, high school’s over.”


Prudie (who true to her name is a bit of a prude) looks back at her husband like, you poor simple human being, haven’t you been told? “High school,” she insists is “never over.”


I’m sure its true that not everyone crowded into our Loud Table got along every second of high school, but based on my own four hour trip down memory lane, if there was a part of high school that didn’t end, it wasn’t the name calling or finger waving typical of some high school dramas. It was the good parts.


My life has been a haven for really good people and a home to some well-worn friendships, born in school days and since. Its nights like this that remind me how friendships can be, and how nice it is to be able to hold onto at least a small piece of so many, wherever life takes us.


Sorry fellow diners, but we get a free pass to be the loud table for the night. ;)

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