To start catching up with the weekend’s World Horror Convention trip …

Since the con wasn’t going to start until late Thursday afternoon, and my flight was supposed to land in Austin around 11:00 a.m.—at least until the weather delayed my takeoff by two hours—I made plans to get together for lunch with a high school friend I hadn’t seen since 1973.

As so many high school friends have, Rita popped back into my life on Facebook, but unlike most of those other friends, she now lived in a city that was on my con circuit. Turns out she’d moved from Brooklyn to Austin many decades ago, and once we reconnected, we figured we’re try to get together during WHC. Since I live and breathe cons once I hit the hotel, Thursday lunch seemed to be the only possible time.

We met at Rudy’s, which claims it serves “the worst bar-b-q in Texas,” and proceeded to catch up on about 70 years of history. (That’s around 35 years apiece.) I’ll keep the details between Rita and me, and instead just present you with a visual aid so you can see what the years have done to us.

Here we are Thursday at Rudy’s.

And here’s how we appeared in our high school yearbook.

Still about the same, huh?

What do you think? Do I need to bring back the goatee?