Stories of Best Friends Lost and Found

During the course of searching out everyone this past year, Linda encountered so many stories, so many details pushed back into the recesses of our fading memories. She also ran smack dab into old friendships that like memories, had slowly faded into the background. The motives, the feelings that caused those friendships to begin never changed. They just remained in limbo, waiting for the opportunity to pop back up to the surface like bottles containing messages drifting up on the seashore. And that happened for Linda, with friends from both Centennial and West Terrace as well as her Reitz days. And she's been making sure that her busy schedule has time included in it for those friends once again. Who ever thought that retirement would be so busy. I'm trying to convince her that the word is "full" and not "busy". How much better is that than "empty" or "boring".

So why did those friendships get pushed into the background? That is the right way to describe it. Sometimes the events that are directly in front of you get blown out of proportion and take on a false importance. There is only so much time, and those things, like the drive for material wealth and status or overwhelming ambition, start pushing others out of the way. Like friendship, family, faith, memories of the past and your origins all take a seat along the wall like the shy at the high school dance.

Sometimes it takes an event, like the 2011 Preunion, what people are now calling the 44th, to pop that bubble, to pull you back from the brink to where you really wanted to be but had forgotten. And for those of you who have managed to maintain those friendships across the years, perhaps it has helped you look at those relationships with a new understanding of their importance in your lives and with a new appreciation.

As I embark on a similar journey with my high school class, I begin to think about these same things. I've got stories too, and old friends too long forgotten. This has been my awakening too. I'll be relating these at a different venue with the Wayne Valley High School crowd.