Reunion tour

A personal post that might be of interest to Have Not Been the Same readers and/or anyone who ever worked at a campus paper. This week’s live music listings are here.

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“I’m glad we’re not here for a funeral.”

That’s what I told an old friend on the weekend. We were back in our old university town for a reunion of our campus paper staff. I hadn’t seen some of these people in 30 years. Time is a funny thing.

In the post-Facebook era, it’s downright novel to reconnect with people across such a gap in the time-space continuum. Most of us have at least a vague idea of what our old classmates are up to, or our previous co-workers. The very idea of high school reunions has almost been rendered irrelevant. And do we really want to see most of those people in person anyway?

And so I can’t remember the last time I walked into a room full of people I once knew and been so overwhelmed with surprises and instant reconnection. Like finding a long-lost family.

We all worked at a campus newspaper together at the most formative time of our lives. It could have been a sports team or a drama group or a band or something similar, but in our case it was a newspaper.

A newspaper! “Do those still exist?” a colleague was honestly asked recently. Another was asked by his gym trainer what his profession is. “A journalist.” The trainer looked mystified: “Oh, what’s that?”

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In the fall of 1990 I walked into the campus paper office at my small-town university and asked if I could write for them. It was the first week of school, in a new town, and I knew exactly where I wanted to be. The entertainment editor was incredibly welcoming and put me to work right away. My first interview was with Lava Hay, a Toronto/Vancouver act who played frosh week. It was conducted in the office, with other staff milling about. The novelty of musicians in the midst encouraged eavesdropping, as was the fact the band was fronted by two beautiful women with matching haircuts. All that was a bit nerve-wracking for an 18-year-old newbie doing his first semi-professional interview.

It was in that office that I met my social circle, including two women who changed my life and remain close friends to this day. (EDIT: not the members of Lava Hay, just to be clear.) I met entrancing older peers who believed in me, who challenged me in all the best ways, who introduced me to new art, new politics and new ways of thinking. They also kept me much busier than my schoolwork, for better or worse. At age 19, I became entertainment editor.

School was abstract. This was real. This was life. This was an actual business, with thousands of captive readers and dozens of advertisers. There was a greater responsibility. And I don’t think any of us were older than 25. You can’t buy that kind of education. And some of us didn’t—not everyone who worked there were enrolled students.

We all made mistakes. SO MANY MISTAKES. Mistakes you can only now find in the bound pages of back copies that I’m presuming are still on campus somewhere. They sure ain’t online—thank god. But we also did great work, full of piss and vinegar and drunken dreams and high visions and annoying idealism that had yet to descend into cynicism.

At the reunion, one colleague said he recently revisited some of his old writing, preparing to cringe. He was more than pleasantly surprised. We were good, dammit.

Some of us were deadly serious, some of us wanted to shake down all sacred cows. But we all wanted to laugh while doing it. Including making fun of our biggest advertisers:

At the extreme risk of sounding 1,000 years old: shit was primitive. Desktop publishing was just becoming a thing. There was still cut-and-paste involved. We had something called a “photostat” room. The internet was only for people who read William Gibson. Barely anyone had ever even heard the word “email” before. Nobody worked remotely: we all shared the office, the computers and the couch, literally breathing down each other’s necks until deadlines were met. That’s how I learned the discipline that shaped my professional career. And that’s how we became family.

And there were a lot of fonts. SO MANY FONTS. Often all on the same page.

What a bunch of misfits we all were. Working together.

This is a 2023 rendition of what publishing looked like before the internet (photo by our 1990-91 photo editor):

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Many of us stayed in the industry. Several work in print or broadcasting. One is a high-profile photographer in Toronto (who has contributed to all three of my books). One is an acclaimed playwright. One is a politician. One is now a human rights lawyer.

But no matter where we ended up, I was delighted to find that this group of people were just as hilarious, kind, interesting and engaging as they were when I first met them, at an age when the world was just opening up to me.

We’ve all been through some serious shit—show me a group of fiftysomethings who hasn’t. Which is why it’s so thoroughly satisfying to reconnect with those people who knew you then, people who saw something raw and unrefined in you, people who gave you a place to belong where you all figured it out together.

Back then, we all thought we knew everything. Clearly, dear reader, we did not. But I was so lucky to be surrounded by a group of people such as this one. I could say the same thing about my bandmates, with whom I am still frequently in touch. I count my blessings at least twice over.

I hope anyone reading this has a group that meant/means something similar to them. I hope our children find such a group, such an experience, in an increasingly disconnected physical world.

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This reunion would still have been a blast if it had happened five years ago. But the fact it happened now, after years of lockdowns — and grim online “celebrations of life”— made it even more valuable. I’m emotionally raw for myriad reasons; I’m going to guess that’s not unusual these days. And so experiences like this have much greater resonance.  

I was at a funeral for my father’s best friend a few weeks ago. I saw many beloved childhood friends there, some for the first time in decades. That, too, was a powerful experience. For my 81-year-old dad, not so much: it was his second funeral that week.

In the past two years, I’ve lost two close friends and one acquaintance, all in their 50s. I don’t have to look far to find people who’ve also lost peers in the same demographic. It’s not unusual to be bereaved by anyone.

Which is why you should go that reunion now, the one your friends/band/co-workers have been planning. Celebrate the life now — don’t wait for a “celebration of life.”

BONUS TRACKS:

Writing about this weekend sent me down an era-appropriate musical rabbithole, of course. Above are some examples of our office soundtracks. Also this band, who seemed to be on campus once a month and on rotation constantly in the office. Our EIC had a big crush on Andy Maize. This is a better song than “Free Fallin’,” fight me:

There was talk at the reunion about a New Year’s show by the sadly oft-forgotten Leslie Spit Tree-O, staples of the southern Ontario bar scene at the time:

Live for the gold as though we’ll never grow old

Build ourselves a town and then we watch it all come down

And live our lives as though we’ve never been told

That’s from one of their deep cuts. I could post this vintage slice of paisley pop, or the incredibly catchy song from Roadkill that goes “you ain’t born just to die.” But if you don’t know this band, it’s important that you hear one of the best covers I’ve ever heard, transforming a John Prine song about self-made prisons into a defiant cry, about how it is that to believe in this livin’ should not be a hard way to go. TURN IT UP:

Don’t let those years flow by “like a broken down dam.” Dive in and take a swim. Your friends are waiting.

When you've got so much to say it's called gratitude
And that's right