Cougar Pride

by Kim Thomas

I'll admit it. I have been called a cougar by a few of my friends. I can't help it. Older men don't like me. They don't ask me out. They don't buy me drinks. In fact, they pretty much avoid me at all costs...and I have to also admit, I am not all that giddy about dating them.

So, chances are that you won't see me out and about with any guy over a certain age. In fact, I don't date guys my age...and it's not age-ism, it's just my taste in men.


However, it's not that kind of cougar I am talking about here. I am talking about the people who went to my high school, Conner High School, in Hebron, Kentucky.

In 1970, my classmates and I attended a brand new high school my junior year, when Boone County High got too big for its collective britches. We began simply as a group of teenagers, a lot of kids were from the rural outskirts of Florence (yes, Y'alltown), Kentucky, and although I had gone to school with most of those who stayed at Boone County, my family had moved to the 15th fairway of Boone Aire, and so here I was among the class of Conner Cougars whose school building was not even finished when we began our school year.

Somehow over the next few years, we found our way through to graduation without the evils of established cliques and all the teenage hell that those kinds of circles typically bring. For that reason alone, we were a very close knit bunch, who were instant friends, and remain true to our fellow Cougars to this day. It is my firm belief that it was this very lack of a caste system-like social order that kept us strong, brought out our individuality, and helped us win regional and state recognition in sports, academia and music within our first year of existence as Conner Cougars, and today, I'm proud to say that my granddaughters are Conner cheerleaders. Life is good...

So you may be wondering why I am yammering on about all of this Conner Cougar business. It's mainly because I want to tell the story of a middle child of seven, a so-so talented musician and decent powder puff football player, who against all the odds came out of high school with a great sense of confidence that is born of fidelity and honesty in relationships. I have yet to find anyone who went to Conner in those beginning years who is not friendly, hospitable, funny, and just a damn good friend. I consider all my classmates good friends, in fact!

In the past year or so, I've been fortunate to find a lot of my old Conner friends -- via Facebook and MySpace -- and have become reacquainted with some folks with whom I had lost contact for the last three or four decades. My friend Diana Garrison Rogers and I are now everyday "e-penpals," and we spend as much time together as possible at her gorgeous home up on the Ohio river in Belleview Bottoms, which is 'where the river bends' in Northern Kentucky. (That river. Always bending...y'know?)

Di is such a great gal -- she is who I want to be when I grow up. She is kind, she's funny, beautiful, and doesn't have a mean bone in her body and my life has been immeasurably changed for the good since we 'found' each other again.

At any rate, I'm heading back soon, and so very much looking forward to another weekend with Di and her fabulously fun family. Di will make pumpkins rolls and cook one of her to-die-for dinners. Her sons will joke around and tell stories that will make me laugh until my cheeks hurt and the smile won't leave me until late into next week, I am sure.

I'm also delighted to learn that even a handful of other girls from Conner are going to be there, too! Like Kathy Finn Berger, whose photo of her visit to her mother I have not been able to get out of my mind, since the moment I saw it when Di showed it to me. This picture exemplifies the love, the care, the kindness that I see in the eyes of my friends from Conner.

I am such a fortunate one, to have grown up in lil ol' Florence, back before the Mall, before Y'all, before we all went out into the world to kick its ass. So you see, I'm really lucky be able to call all these Conner Cougars my friends, and there's not a mean one in the bunch...it's called cougar pride! ;-)

pray for peace, y'all,

Kimmy