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Flashback Friday




Flashback Friday- Reunions and Life



This is my high school class or at least those who bothered to show up at the Aledo Country Club somewhere around 2002.  I liked high school.  Got along with most, tried to treat others well,  liked my teachers,  called in a bomb threat, and graduated with reasonably good grades.  Played some football, learned some algebra,  scooped-the-loop on weekends,  and messed around with some girls.  Pretty average high school years, really, except for that unfortunate phone call on December 7th that kind of stirred things up.

Me and the Wombie were one of the "Seaton Gang".  After grade school in Seaton we were bussed over to Aledo starting in Junior High.  I remember when this arrangement was finalized a few years earlier how the parents in Seaton didn't like it, but for us guys, it was wonderful.  New people to meet, expanding our worlds, and likelier a better education.

Can you spot me in the picture above?  If I remember correctly the photographer who was hired to take this shot forgot to put film in the camera, so this picture, blurred and fuzzy though it is, serves as the official snapshot.  If you can't find me, I'm the guy in the upper-center, with the unbuttoned shirt looking down.  Probably checking my pockets to make sure my billfold is still there.  By the way, the Wombie is top row second from left, for those Wombie Watchers out there in BFE land.

Reunions aren't really my thing.  I am far too shy, reserved and getting worse as the years go by.  The strain of mingling and conversing with virtual strangers is far too daunting.  Idle chit-chat exhausts me mentally.  What do you say after "You sure look good"?  And yes, these guys are strangers.  We spent time with each other in classrooms trying to learn adulthood.  Then we all went our own way and developed our own lives.  When we are together we shed the years and its high school days again, but in reality, we are unknown to each other.

This reasserted itself recently since one of my classmates found the blog and we have conversed a bit through the wonders of electronic messaging.  It's been nice to reopen that portal; that time machine. We all seem to reside on our own individual islands and our actions and reactions determine our paths.  Looking back I was perhaps a bit wind-blown rather than charting a planned path and suspect most of us are.  There are some, not many, "forks in the road" throughout life that we approach and decide which to take,  which redirects us until the next one comes along.  I remember all of my forks because I fret and mull them, and not easily either.  One fork I had back then was acceptance to Rollins College in Orlando and I opted to stay at Iowa Wesleyan.  Later on I had another fork when I was accepted as a Probation Officer in Rock Island County, yet I chose to stay at Mary Davis in Galesburg.  Any other choice would have precluded others and changed the direction of the journey.

All in all it was a spectacular bunch we Seatonites fell into.  Cool girls, neat guys to hang around with, great school and lots of good memories.  I wish I could have been smarter, or cooler myself, or maybe applied myself, or learned those football routes better, but thats how it was, and you can't go back.

All in all, I'm almost satisfied with the path so far.  Its not a perfect trip, I've stumbled and tripped a few times, but I bugger on.  I took a path to Florida and I may, sometime, find my way back home.  I hope to walk many more before I reach my destination.



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