Uniting in Unity

The day after my regular class reunion I hooked up with Tommy Decourcy who had come down to Milford for the all class reunion. This event drew about 2000 former graduates from all the classes up until the school closed in ’83. Tom had been to a reunion the night before too, down the road from his house in Unity, NH.

We grew up on the same street but both of our families moved to NH before we had a chance to graduate MHS. Tom’s been living in Hawaii for years but bought his parent’s great old farm house and now spends summers up here. Because part of the main event on Friday night in Unity was a fellow Hawaiian remembered there as “Barry” Obama, Tom went down to see what all the fuss was about.

It was quite a hoot. The school’s maintenance man is the unelected Mayor of Unity and was chosen to make the introductions. He said he thought it was a bit odd for him to be doing so since he was a McCain man and he made an excellent point when he noted that the 214 votes in the primary were split right down the middle. Where’s the unity in that?

Tom was close enough in the rope line to share a “shucka” with Obama. It is a Hawaiian hand signal that indicates a friendly greeting. If you know the ‘hook’em Horns’ gesture using the thumb and pinky to indicate a pair of steers horns you have the idea. Only the thumb points up and the pinky goes down while a quick shake completes the greeting. Obama responded and came over to Tom and Ada with his winning grin and asked if they were Hawaiian. Tom explained they were from Molokai.

In seconds after Obama moved on, the Secret Service were in Tom’s face. “What does that mean?” they wanted to know. Tom told them and they too moved on.

It’s kind of a small world, but I wouldn’t want to have to paint it.