Do I or don’t I?

For the past couple weeks yrs trly has been trying to decide whether I should attend my 50th college class reunion.
My college, Houghton (“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”), about 70 miles south of Rochester in the Genesee River valley, makes a big deal of class reunions; I graduated in 1966.
A class reunion, every five years, is hooked to the college’s commencement in May.
I’ve decided I should attend, -A) partly because my bereavement counselor said I should, but -B) mainly because social events like this seem beneficial.
I attended my 50-year high-school reunion back in 2012 shortly after my wife died, and it was pleasant.
But Houghton is different, it’s a religious college; dare I say it, “evangelical.” I hesitate because Houghton’s president rightly notes “evangelical” has taken a negative connotation.
To me the negative word should be “zealot,” like Isis jihadists.
Houghton was much more “evangelical” than “zealous,” a word that applied to Bob Jones University back in 1962, or perhaps Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University today.
At Houghton I was out-of-it, a “heathen” among righteous.
At Houghton classmates prayed for me by name.
Some could be judgmental.
A few years ago I attended the 35th or 40th reunion of my class, and felt very out-of-it.
I tried to convey this to my bereavement counselor. “Oh after 50 years your classmates will have become more tolerant.”
That’s just what I need, another discussion of great religious workings in my life.
I decided to limit my attendance to a surgical-strike. The reunion takes an entire weekend; I will just attend a Saturday luncheon and a class picture.
If I find myself in another witness-circle, I will just note I’m missing three things.
I’m missing —1) my left knee, it was replaced. I now have a metal knee.
I’m also missing —2) my prostate gland. It was found to be cancerous, so was removed last August.
—3) I no longer have a wife, who also graduated in our class.
At which point some classmate will say “you’ll see her again some day.”
Engage nerve; can I do it, or can’t I?
“I never believed that stuff, nor did my wife.”
Classmates will gasp.
“But thanks for your concern.”
I never regretted attending Houghton.
It was the first place I had adult authority-figures solicit my opinions. Instead of automatically berating me as “of-the-Devil.”
Houghton was at the behest of my hyper-religious father, who ended up mad because Houghton didn’t “straighten me out.”
He wanted me to attend Moody Bible Institute in Chicago like he did.
But in 1962, Moody wasn’t a college, and Houghton was.
Moody was urban = frightening. Houghton is very rural, not a party school. This encourages intellectual pursuit.
The “little island of decency;” very suburban.
We compromised.
Some time between the luncheon and class-picture we may also be greeted by the college president.
I probably shouldn’t attend, for fear of getting all-and-sundry bent outta shape.
“Ya gotta watch that Class of ’66. It has Ne’er-do-Wells.”

• “Houghton” is Houghton College in western New York, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college.
• The “Genesee River” (“jen-uh-SEE”) is a fairly large river that runs south-to-north across Western New York, runs through Rochester, including over falls, and empties into Lake Ontario. The Genesee Valley was our nation’s first breadbasket.
• My wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her immensely.