The 17th is Always a Good Day!

I'm not "stuck" in class reunion thoughts, but I am certainly "lingering" in them. After posting a photo yesterday that showed our two yearbooks--Mr. Fun's artistically designed and mine quite boring--we continued wandered through the pages of each. So I selected 3 of those pages to display today as proof of my evaluation.

Mr. Fun's beautifully designed book has 2, not 1, but 2 full pages of color--as can be seen here. Mine has none.

The group of kids sitting in the bleachers contains many people we remember, many who were at class reunion two nights ago, a few we still see often, and at least one close friend, Bruce, who is dead now. Bruce is sitting in the middle of that group of kids. He's the one wearing glasses and making a funny face. He died Sept. 12, 2001 from prostate cancer. He lived in Northern California, but he always came south for the class reunions. Our 2 kids loved him. So did we. He gave me significant encouragement when I went to college as a re-entry student in my 30s.

Our school mascot was Sam the panther. Inside that panther costume is Sally, who married Mr. Fun's best friend, Mike Wagner. The 4 of us became very good friends and spent lots of time together back in the 60s until one of the most tragic moments of our lives happened when Mike was killed in an auto accident on his way home from work. He was 23 and left a wife and a 2 year old son, Brent.

The page I've displayed from my yearbook does include me, though. That's the line-up of the sophomore class officers: the secretary, the treasurer, and the vice-president. The class president is missing and must have been sick on that photo-taking day. One of those officers is me. I'm not sure that anyone would know which one. That photo and this Blip photo of my sophomore English teacher are certainly connected. What the yearbook photo doesn't reveal is that I lost my position as class vice-president when the second semester started because my grades had dropped. By the end of the semester I was dropping out of school completely to marry Mr. Fun. I am the student sitting on the right next to our faculty advisor.

Pausing to do some serious reflection about school, friends, and the journey we have taken in life helps us to appreciate the fingerprints of all the people whose lives have influenced and enhanced ours and the events that have left a mark on us. I hope that I can always ask "what am I suppose to learn from this?" rather than "why did this happen to me?" I think it is almost impossible to describe the importance of the friends we know and have known, but it is possible to express our great thanks for them.

It's been a very good day. I love the 17th!
Good night from Southern California--the land
of nostalgia (well, it has been today).

Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol