Dr. Billingsgate's 50th Reunion

BILLINGSGATE JOURNAL (Dateline San Diego)

BULLETIN: Not since General Douglas MacArthur returned to Leyte Island in the Philippines in 1944, fulfilling his promise to return, has there been more anticipation than Dr. Billingsgate's return for his 50th high school reunion. Using a diversionary tactic that MacArthur would have been proud of, the classmates who were in charge of organizing the reunion were led to believe that Bob Kisley was bringing back two orangutans from Sumatra as part of his posse.

Lisa and Jihad, the orangutans who were commandeered by Kisley from the Orangutan Rehabilitation Center in Northern Sumatra, were to have been sold to the local zoo to pay for Kisley's passage. However, while trying to board the plane from Honolulu to LAX, Jihad was apprehended by Home Security marshalls who believed him to have connections to Al-Queda. Jihad led the marshalls on a chase that ended after he was shot in the butt with a tranquilizer dart, but not before he had bitten off the nose and two fingers of one of his captors. The last we heard he was being flown to Gitmo by the CIA for water-board training. Let me assure you, he will not give up information concerning bin Laden's hiding place. He is one tough monkey.

Anyway, the reunion committee was atwitter and clucking in anticipation of the Kisley group's arrival. Lisa and Jihad had name cards with their pictures, just like the rest of the class. Quite frankly, when I saw their pictures, I thought that Jim Turner and Gerald Peschel had found a magic formula for growing body hair.

In retrospect, I was quite disappointed that none of my old classmates seemed impressed with the eleven Doctorates that I had earned since I graduated from High School in 1957. Burned in my memory is the remark that Sister Eileen wrote on one of my report cards for my parents to read, "Paul will never amount to a hill of beans unless he learns to cheat better." Well, I hope she's proud of me now.

The Doctor