I recently received an email from an old classmate who is handling the affair, inviting me to my high school reunion. My high school was Campbell High of Fairburn, Georgia. The football team was the Campbell High Bears; the mascot someone parading around in a blue bear suit; and the theme song, “Hail to Thee O’ Campbell High School.” Believe it or not, but I still recall most, if not all, of the lyrics.

Campbell High no longer exists, having been replaced years ago by a sprawling county metro-school that probably has more students in one class than Campbell graduated in any given year.

Anyway, the funny thing is that I didn’t actually graduate from Campbell High. I dropped out at 16 to get married, which is what girls did back then, especially if they were pregnant, which I happened to be, and that is another story entirely. My point is that I am invited to the reunion. Why, you ask? Heck, if I know. But, reason notwithstanding, I may just attend this reunion. I guess because I’m curious. I would like to see how my classmates turned out. What are they doing? Are they successful? Are they happily married? Do they have grandkids? Are they thin or fat? Are they bald? Do they look older than I do?

Mostly, however, I would like to see if the popular girls in school maintained their looks. These were the cheerleaders. Cheerleaders were always the most popular girls, the ones all the boys wanted to date; but at Campbell High School the cheerleaders were also the daughters of the wealthiest families in town (doctor, dentist, pharmacist, banker—singular, because Fairburn was so small back then, it only provided enough business for one of each profession), which left the rest of us, the daughters of the working class, out in the cold. We could only dream of being cheerleaders; and although the school would allow any girl to try out for cheerleader, we knew it was an exercise in futility. We didn’t stand a chance.

There was a song way back when. It went, “I learned the truth at seventeen, that love belongs to beauty queens.” Well, I learned the truth at thirteen when I started high school, and that truth was “Money talks,” and if your family had enough of it, you got to be on the cheerleading squad.

So, again, I guess I’ll attend my high school reunion. Yes, I want to see how the cheerleaders turned out, but on the other hand, I imagine if the alumni are desperate enough to invite a high school dropout, it’s the least I can do. After all, I suspect they need warm bodies, given their ranks have probably been drastically reduced through the years—and although I didn’t graduate from Campbell, I did attend until midway through my sophomore year, and surely that counts for something.