A Big Number

I opened a letter over the weekend. It was from the committee responsible for organizing my high school reunion. My 45^th high school reunion.

That’s a big number.

I don’t live in the past but I have some very good memories. While I would have rather been the “most athletic” or the “most likely to succeed,” I settled for “class clown” of the 1975 class of Civic Memorial High School in my hometown of Bethalto, Illinois. A lotta water has rolled under the bridge since then.

The war in Viet Nam ended around my 18^th birthday. Nothing did more for college success than ‘Nam. Gas was 44-cents a gallon but I remember a gas war where it got to a quarter. I owned a 1967 Chevy Impala slant back which consumed more oil than gas. There was a new thing called Betamax….but we played “Pong” on our black and white televisions.

 I’ve lost touch with many of the people who were part of my life then and to quote Thomas Wolfe from his unpublished manuscript The October Fair….”You can’t go home again.”

I know that and I refuse to live in the past.

But there are times…when it is easy to slip back…to replay that football game we lost (and trust me there are many to choose from)…or that moment where you thought you were in love.

I guess I will wear my corrective shoes, clean my glasses, comb both of my hairs and send in my form with a check.

What would the party be without the clown?