Last night I dreamed about Kay Colvin, a classmate from high school who is now dead. Kay and I were always in the same home room; she usually sat behind me [Cockerham, Colvin, Cooksey]. So today I decided to call Ruby Franklin Moody, who had tried to get in touch with me for the reunion this past Friday night. She told me that Kay died from the results of starving herself trying to get thin. Anorexia? Bulimia?
Admittedly, Kay was always a bit plump in high school, but she struck me as someone with great self-confidence. It kind of throws me to hear that maybe that self-confidence didn't really exist. Or maybe some damned man stayed on her about her weight. I don't know. Kay was a "keeper," one of the good guys.
Beverly Neal had cancer. Brenda Nugent has cancer. Becky Thompson died of cancer. Ollie Faye died of cancer. Homer Snoddy (started with our class, fell behind) seems to have committed suicide. Gary Babcock is addicted to drugs. Tom Baldridge died of AIDS, supposedly contracted during a blood transfusion. Marcia Henderson is a poverty-stricken single mother in Livingston, Texas, or at least that's the way Ruby translated Marcia's inability to attend the reunion.
She said Donna Jo Whitehead (Evans) was there and now lives in Pineville.
Ruby says they are planning a well-organized 45th reunion. (As opposed to this hastily thrown together fete at Rhonda Gough's house after the ballgame.) I'll try to go to that one.
Johnette Ford refused to go to this reunion, telling Ruby that she kept in touch with her college friends but not her high school friends. I suspect that Johnette is a lesbian, but all I really know is that she never married. It doesn't matter one way or the other.
I'm still sad about Kay. Rest in peace, Kay. I'm so sorry that you lost your life in pursuit of thinness. If only you'd waited a year or two, you'd have realized how unimportant weight is.
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