Sorry, I just woke up from a coma

I finally went and did it.

A few Saturdays ago, I rifled through the now-worn Xerox paper box in my possession — hey, Mom was the Middle School secretary here in town for years and could score me a free box — that I’ve lugged from city to city and from state to state since the ’90s.

Deep within its recesses sat an ancient tome, its cover depicting some sort of horned pagan god.

OK, OK, enough already — it was just my senior yearbook.

With a Ram on the cover.

But, I’d recently found myself needing to consult the ancient text, its black-and-white pictures no doubt printed on papyrus.

“Who,” I started asking myself on a near-weekly basis, “is that person?!”

I honestly thought I remembered every single person I ever went to school with, from Miss Pat’s preschool on.

But, within about 48 hours of moving back to town in late November after 14 years in Ohio, I encountered the first person I clearly should have known.

I mean, he knew me.

“Andy McGinn!” he shouted outside the gas station one night as I emerged with my little bag of Chex Mix.

“Hey, man!” I politely shouted back as my brain began rapidly cycling through every face I’d ever seen, like the crime lab computer on “NCIS.”

Frankly, though, I was drawing a blank.

For me, this is akin to a crisis. I hate fake, generic talk, but at the same time, it pains me to admit that, “I’m sorry, man, I just can’t remember you.”

It would probably behoove me to just come clean, but I’m afraid of offending them.

“Oh, I see,” I can hear them saying angrily, “how memorable I was.”

“I actually persuaded (insert guy from East Greene here) not to beat you up outside Motor Parts that night,” he’d add before storming off. “I should have just let him kick the snot outta you, and that Tuel idiot, too.”

Simply put, though, I don’t think I’ve seen 99.2 percent of my graduating class — the Jefferson-Scranton class of Nineteen Hundred and Ninety-Five — since that May day in 1995.

I suspect a few were abducted by aliens.

I strongly suspect a few, in fact, are aliens.

Throw in upperclassmen and underclassmen and it’s painfully clear that my memory isn’t as airtight as I previously thought.

I now take full responsibility for my lack of contact with old classmates.

I was actually, once upon a time, senior class president.

Truth be told, I still believe I was elected because they all wanted me to say something outrageously stupid at commencement. (I’m afraid I let them down. In retrospect, I let myself down, too.)

But, in running for office, I made one thing clear: If elected, I would not plan any class reunions.

What’s so weird about a politician actually keeping a campaign promise?

In doing so, though, they didn’t bother to invite me to any reunions, either.

So we’re even.

To be honest, moving back home after so many years away is sort of like waking up from a coma.

On a daily basis, there are so many people, classmates aside, I see that I recognize — and, yet, their name completely escapes me.

Every so often, that manifests itself awkwardly.

I interviewed Bob and Joyce Ausberger in March. I walked into their Lincoln Highway museum in Grand Junction and greeted Joyce by saying, “Hey! I know you!”

Not, “Hi, so good to see you again.”

But, “Hey! I know you!”

Joyce just kind of looked at me and smiled sympathetically, as if I’d maybe suffered a stroke at some point.

I saw Dorla Neiderheiser at the Fort Dodge airport this past Saturday as she waited for her husband to return from the Honor Flight, and I walked up and announced, “Hey! You used to give me my allergy shots at the clinic!”

It’s like I just emerged from a cryogenic chamber or something.

If I don’t recognize you, please accept my deepest apologies in advance.

If I do, but just can’t remember your name, take it as a compliment — it means you’ve aged well.

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