Lee Geiger

We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.

Japanese Proverb

April 28 is a day which has been bulls-eyed on my calendar for many weeks. Today’s hoo-ha is a three-hour cruise to the quaint confines of the Mission Ranch Hotel in Carmel (cruise, as in never going faster than 40mph thanks to everyone residing in the Gilroy/Morgan Hill corridor being on the road at the same time as me). Clint Eastwood owns the deed to Mission Ranch, and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen his Hollywood Highness roaming the grounds blowing away tourists. And since you asked, the latest scuttlebutt suggests Mr. Dirty Harry is now making the day of a certain Mission Ranch waitress who happens to be a fistful of decades younger than him…not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The purpose of today’s excursion is dinner with the Dead Rabbit Tribe (DRT) of the Carmel High School Class of ’78, whose permanent members include yours truly, world-renowned author/artist/Jedi Master Belle Yang, anesthesiologist extraordinaire Dr. John Pollard, and former beauty queen turned first-time-mother-of-twins-at-forty-you’ve-got-to-be-kidding Kristen Tibbitts Marinovic. The four of us gather several times a year at Mission Ranch for dinner to share personal updates and dish up some class dirt (DRT…get it?). Recently, to add some sugar and spice to the conversation, we’ve reached out to other local classmates to join us and become honorary Dead Rabbits. Being led to tonight’s slaughter is John Frincke, who is famous among his Carmel brethren for two reasons. First, he is one half of the legendary basketball duo of Tom and John Frincke, identical twin brothers who created a local basketball dynasty. And two, for being named in a graduation class poll as the male half of the “Cutest Couple,” which seemed odd when you have an identical twin brother. I’m just saying.

These dinners are more fun than watching Sean Spicer defend a Trump tweet. They’re luscious affairs that wind up being infinitely more enjoyable than class reunions. Small talk is replaced by real conversation, and layers born of callow cliques and teenage stereotypes get scraped away with every new round of cocktails. Dinner normally commences at six o’clock, but Belle arrives early to score a table on the hotel’s expansive patio overlooking a pastoral meadow. Nothing says old school Carmel more than watching the sun set over Point Lobos while scarfing down a plate of potato skins in front of a nosy flock of sheep.

Being invited to a Dead Rabbit dinner is like appearing on an episode of “The View.” Belle is the event’s charming producer, and thus she is charged with doling out invitations. She likes to start off the evening playing good cop, lobbing polite questions about what you’ve been up to for the last thirty years. John steps in and probes about health and family matters, which makes sense since Dr. Pollard carries a regal bedside manner and bears a striking resemblance to “Father Knows Best” patriarch Robert Young, both of which he’s owned since the eighth grade. Kristen always makes a fuss about how amazing our guest looks, usually after he or she has picked up their jaw upon discovering that Kristen, who at fifty-something still turns heads flaunting a wreath of silver/gray hair, didn’t get married or have kids until she got within striking distance of an AARP card.

Then it’s my turn, cocked and usually loaded after mainlining merlot. Coming from the mind of the deliriously demented author of “Ten Questions,” I like to focus my inquisition on more earthy issues, the kind of indiscrete queries that, depending on which side of the sidewalk you prefer to walk on, can either make you squirm in your chair or refill you wine glass. What do you regret most about high school? Who from your class do you secretly wish you spent more time with? Why won’t you talk to your BFF anymore? I might even ask if you lost your virginity on prom night, but only after we’ve had dessert.

Because we four original Dead Rabbits have already spent years bearing our collective souls to one another, striping our lives down to nothing but our psychogenic fig leaves, invited dinner guests confessing rookie mistakes and youthful indiscretions, unhealthy habits and family dysfunction, and secret obsessions and lustful wants, is nothing we haven’t heard before. That being said, the honesty of one’s sincerity, rather than the quality of their story, is the yardstick by which we judge. And if we’re moved to collectively share a laugh, shed a tear, or provide a standing ovation, all the better. Our Dead Rabbit mantra is simple: we were alive then, we’re alive now, and everything that fell in between can and should be filed under the heading “Stuff That Happens.” Deal with it and move on. Next.

Let’s be honest. When all is said and done, nobody cares how well you danced, just so long as you got up and danced.