Ellyn and I went to my 40th high school reunion this past weekend – having already gone to hers. I don’t remember much about high school. In my senior year I was taking Calculus at the local community college and doing work experience – so I had 4 classes on campus (instead of 6)? I lived 7 miles from school because back in the 60’s there was a bus that ran a route that had been discontinued but never updated. Nearly everyone else in the neighborhood went to the school that was just 2 miles away instead. I didn’t go to a single ball game. I didn’t go to a single dance. As opposed to junior high (in Germany). In 9th grade I went to every dance and did ski Saturdays. I have more facebook friends (for what that’s worth) with folks I went to junior high with than high school. My graduating class was about 600 people – give or take a hundred. Jr. High was 2-300? spread K-12 (actually K-13 because some British schools had 13 grades back then).
But I decided that number 40 was it. So Ellyn and I headed down to L.A. to spend the weekend. We checked in to our hotel Friday afternoon and I looked online to see what was going on locally. It turns out that Jay Leno was doing his thing at a club 30 minutes away (which is nearby in LA terms). I bought us a pair of tickets for less than twice the cost of a movie and we got to see Jay Leno doing his thing at a club in Burbank. There were 30 folks in the audience? Certainly fewer than 40. Totally weird to see someone that famous in a place that small and be able to get tickets 90 minutes before the show. LA is weird. We had a great time!
Saturday we went to a gaming store we spotted as we were driving back Friday night. It was awesome. They sell tea. They sell games. They foster cats. They have a bunch of rooms for gaming. They have some big open gaming areas. They have air conditioning. They have a games library where you can grab a game and sit down and play it – which we did. We had a fun time and ended up buying a game. I wish our little town could support something like that.
Saturday night was the reunion. I was hoping to see 3-4 folks I recognized. I was expecting to see 1-2. I was not disappointed! The person I was most hoping to see was there (Hi, Arleen!). There were a few folks I would have liked to see, and there were a few folks I squinted at and ‘oh, yeah – I think I remember you…’ The food was good, the music was bad (mostly – 80’s music – new wave – I was and still am a head banger), and the venue was quite nice. I feel like that does it for me – I don’t suppose I’ll go to 50 unless someone I want to see again asks.
Sunday we got an “early” start and headed up the coast. We stopped off at Gaviota (the last beach before turning North and inland) and jumped in the water. It was so nice! The beach underwater has a lot of rocks, though (small ones – think foot to head sized) and the surf was short break so it was not good for body surfing. But it was fabulous to just swim out a little and bob in the water. Though it does suffer from the Santa Barbara tar curse. For those not familiar, oil seeps out naturally off the coast and deposits in the sand – so you end up getting blotches of tar on your feet. Trivial to get off with nail polish remover.
While packing up on Sunday, I went to put my ipad mini in Ellyn’s backpack and asked here where to put it. She said “there’s a zipper poket on the back that is shallow – put it in there.” So I look at the backpack and there is a zipper on the back and I unzip it and it is just wide enough to put the ipad in – but nowhere near tall enough. So I whine at Ellyn and she comes over a bit frustrated. She grabs the ipad and starts putting it in the zipper slot at the front of the backpack.
“Wait. You said the back of the backpack.”
“YES! The back of the backpack. Here.”
… “Wait. That’s the front of the backpack.”
“What? No! That’s the back of the backpack.”
We both gape at each other. 33 years we’ve been together. We’ve backpacked in Europe. We’ve been camping any number of times. Ellyn hardly leaves the house without her purse/backpack. Suddenly an infinite number of tiny frustrations when giving backpack directions make a whole lot more sense.
“No! The front of the backpack is the part that rests against your back. It faces the same way as you do when your walking. The back of it is the farthest from your front – it faces the same way your back does!”
“No! (pointing at the backpack laying on the table) The front of the backpack is what is facing you when it is lying on the table! The back is the part farthest from you as your facing it on the table!”
So we learned something. After 33 years we don’t agree on what the front of a backpack is.
Kurt's Blog 
I’m going Team Ellyn on this one: front of the backpack is the side you see first when buying it. On a Jansport (because we’re talking high school reunions), it would be the side with the little pocket where you put pencils and pens which bleed into the bottom corners. It has its own anatomy! Not just piggybacking onto human anatomy! Madness. Madness. 🤣
Really? I will, of course, be asking everyone what their take is.
I’m reminded of a cartoon I saw in The New Yorker (I think) once upon a time, where there are two men standing facing each other, each with a baby strapped in a carrier on his chest. One has the baby facing away from the chest, and one has the baby facing toward the chest. The caption is, “No, you have your baby on backwards,” or something like that. I could never work out which one was talking, and it doesn’t actually matter, since they’ve obviously each said something like it.
I haven’t really thought about front vs. back for backpacks before now, since I only ever go rummaging around in my own. I guess if I were to attempt to describe the layers of the pack in a front-back orientation, I would start at the layer farthest from the shoulder straps and work toward the straps. In this way, I suppose we could personify the backpack as a partner, standing back-to-back with me to ward off any “lack of stuff” that might be creeping up behind me. And when, inevitably, the Jansport develops a hole in a corner and starts dropping dice, it is a bombardier/tailgunner.