Friday, May 24, 2013.
Forty-Five More Years To Remember. Rock 'n' Bowl.
Tonight was the forty-five-year reunion of the Archbishop Rummel High School Class of 1968, of which I am a member. I was at Jesuit longer, but Rummel was where I graduated, at the end of what I recall as the best pre-college year of my academic life. I made friends easily, had several great teachers, and generally enjoyed myself. But while I knew almost everybody in my class at Jesuit, I wasn't at Rummel long enough to have met a lot of the guys in the other homerooms.
The only time that matters is when I encounter guys I graduated with who I don't remember at all. The memory gap that embarrasses me most involves Ron Kotteman. He's the current master of the Roman Chewing Candy wagon, a major piece of New Orleans local color, with his beloved donkey-pulled cart. I surely should have known him. And fellow radio guy Don Dubuc, who I didn't realize got his diploma at the same time and place I did until decades afterwards.
So there were a lot of these fellows I didn't know. But enough to keep the evening interesting. Dominic Impastato, the founder of Parran's Po-Boys, and later the operator of the first Italian restaurant I encountered that had an all-Sinatra background music track. Gary Robertson, who operated a series of neighborhood restaurants on the North Shore. And John Farrar, a friend of my best friend at Jesuit. He introduced me around and was probably responsible for my being able to slip into the stream easily. John now lives in Panama. What does he do there? "Nothing," he said. Always a funny guy.
But a lot of my classmates are doing nothing these days. Most of us are sixty-three, and a few have gone into retirement.
One significant group was missing from the reunion: the half-dozen or so other guys who, like me, started at Jesuit and finished at Rummel. We all hold a secret: Rummel was as good a school as Jesuit was, and (at that time, anyway) a lot friendlier.
On the other hand, the Jesuit reunions two weeks ago had Rummel beat badly on the food front. The Rummel event was at Rock 'n' Bowl. The entire menu: jambalaya and penne pasta Alfredo. Good, but very unambitious. I think I will get involved when our fiftieth rolls around to make the spread a bit more celebratory.
To browse through all of the Dining Diaries since 2008, go here.
