It has been 50 years since I graduated from High School. 1958! That means that our class of old fogies is featured at the June celebration of alumni.
Part of me says it would be nice to revisit people that I grew up with but I remember them as they were 50 years ago. I might not want to disturb those memories. Another part of me says it would be really interesting to see how everyone's life turned out. I know that 21 classmates out of a graduating class of 128 are deceased.
Saturday morning I was home minding my own business when a classmate from the 50's called to determine if your Mom and I were planning on attending the June reunion.
The voice was Richard Shovan, a twin to Roger Shovan (now deceased). The Shovan family ran a restaurant in the building that Grandpa George bought on Mill street and used as his shop until he retired. I would walk 2 blocks down Mill Street in Plymouth each morning and pick up Richard and Roger on the way to school. Richard's Mom would greet me at the restaurant door and give me a hug (she weighed over 300 pounds but she was a delight). Sometimes I made her chase me around the kitchen before she got the hug. She always said she wanted to adopt me. Richard's Mom and Dad were killed in a car accident when he was 13-14 years old. The restaurant closed and Richard and Roger had to live with sisters and ultimately with a close Aunt and Uncle all through High School. It obviously changed their lives. I played basketball with Richard all through High School.
Richard went on a class exchange trip as a senior with 30-40 Plymouth students (along with your Mom) to some place in Louisiana (in exchange, 30-40 students from Louisiana came to Plymouth). He made many friends on the trip and ended up going to college and marrying someone from Louisiana. His field of endeavor was social work, maybe because he was sympathetic for people that had been dealt a "tough hand" in life.
I got to travel down memory lane for almost an hour. Richard's voice sounds similar to what I remember. Then, only as I can do, I indicated that we were certainly considering going to the reunion (notice I didn't commit). I have to admit it was a "blast from the past".
I'm not real good at lamenting about what might have been in the past. You can't change it anyway. The real lesson Grasshoppers is enjoy the moment (it will soon be the past) and keep looking ahead. Dreams are the essence of life!
Love,
Dad