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Words for a Room Full of Strangers

Are we the same people we were forty years ago? Some thoughts on what Mötley Crüe can teach us about navigating a high school class reunion.

William Shunn
10 min readOct 7, 2024

I graduated from Davis High School in Kaysville, Utah, in 1984. Late last month I traveled back to Utah for my 40-year class reunion at Oakridge Country Club in Farmington, where I had been asked to take ten minutes and “tell a story.” If you’ve read “We Shout at the Chat Room!,” a post of mine from 2019, then you already know the story I told, but I framed it somewhat differently for the occasion.

A whole lot of old people gather in a banquet room for a group photo.
Strangers at the Davis High School Class of 1984 reunion, Oakridge Country Club, Farmington, Utah, 28 September 2004. I’m one of the youngest members of our graduating class but I look like one of the oldest. (Photograph by Lani Kai Eggertsen-Goff.)

Howdy, strangers!

I’m really glad to see you all, and I’m really glad I made it here. My partner Nicole and I were supposed to fly in from New York on Wednesday, spend a couple of days in Park City, take it easy, see some family, have a leisurely day today.

But then one of our pets got very sick at the beginning of the week, so we canceled the Park City part of the trip. And then he wasn’t getting better so we decided I’d have to come by myself while Nik stayed with Sugi, and then my flights yesterday got canceled because of Hurricane Helene, and I got rerouted and delayed, and I think I might have eaten something bad at the airport in Dallas, and I didn’t get in until really late…

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William Shunn
William Shunn

Written by William Shunn

Writer, poet and puzzle maker. Hugo and Nebula Award finalist. Author of The Accidental Terrorist: Confessions of a Reluctant Missionary. He/him/Bill.

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