Class of Seventy-Two

I’m 44 years and 250 miles removed from the red dirt of my home town, Colorado City Texas.  As we drove along the back roads of Texas, as we drove through Bangs and Zephyr and crossed Bearfoot Creek and Yellow Wolf Creek, as we moved from oak to scrub oak to large mesquite to small mesquite I began to feel the familiarity of home, a home long time gone.

Skip, a literal lifelong friend, and I drove into town, from the south.  We drove into a town I left in 1972, the summer after I graduated from high school.  I have returned to west Texas infrequently for reunions, Skip a little more often.  The town is different, it has evolved, it has changed, it has aged, just as we have.

My childhood homes, the houses I grew up in are long gone, no buildings, no foundations, no nothing.  The earth has started the process of reclaiming the road where I learned to play baseball and ride bikes and where I played under the street lights with neighbors.  In time, I suspect, the only thing left to mark our lives there will be two solitary cattle guards, guarding nothing but pasture grass and mesquite trees.

The town is different, it feels different.  Just like me, like Skip, like all who attended this reunion from all six graduating classes, the town has celebrated success, suffered from natural aging, mourned radical change and evolved in a world where evolution leaves nothing unscathed.

It’s interesting that this part of the world still has such a gravitational pull on my psyche.  As we drove into the town it still felt like home.  My old house is gone, every piece of the home I knew for years has been eradicated, but the town, the little west Texas red dirt town still feels a lot like home to me.

The town holds my memories, it holds my history, it connects me to that part of my life where I started to become a real human being.  It connects some of the dots; it connects some of the trails I’ve walked to get to where I am today.

The memories of skies turned orange from the dust from cotton gins in October, learning how to put on footballs pads, and marching down 2^nd Street with the junior high band while Bob Newman, the band director, walked the sidewalks confiscating pea shooters from the local hoodlums intent on shooting the band are still very much alive.

 I never feel the first cold winds of winter without thinking of those skies and those times spent with my friends enjoying free life in a small town.

It really does come down to the people, the people who, in spite of the miles and years, are the only ones who know a special part of your life.  It’s the history you have with these people, not the number of years, not the continuous contact.  They are all part of your formation, all part of your connection to your past, to your own history, to your beginnings and your essence.  These are the people that knew who you were before you were an adult, before you were changed by the vagaries of life. 

It all comes down to Skip and Dean and Randy and David and Sherry and Barbara and Sharon and all of those who also hold the memories who are also connected to this little town.  Its Fay and Debra and Sonny and Wayne and Dewain and Mark and Judy and Kathy and Carolyn who lived through the same times, who remember what it was like when we heard about JFK being assassinated, who watched the same dumb television shows and watched the Beatles and listened to American Band Stand and know who Sky King is.  These people hold the key to your memories and they will forever be a part of your beginning, your growing up, your heart break, your tragedy, your victories, your failures and your recoveries.

Sorry guys but you’re there for life whether you want to be or not, you get to all be a part of who I am as I carry on with Marty, with my kids and with my grandchildren.  You are a part of me as I am, like it or not, a part of you. 

That’s why it makes sense to stop in every now and then and talk.  I like that.

Finding Myself at Home

I asked Marty, with just a tinge of guilt and remorse, “Do you mind if I go this weekend?”

She looked at me and immediately said, “Not at all.”

“Does it make you mad, does it bother you that I’m not taking you?” I probed, trying to assuage my ever present guilt.

“Yes, but only because I’m not well enough to go.” she replied, letting me off the hook just a bit.

As I drove through central Texas to west Texas that brief innocuous conversation played in my mind repeatedly. Going to my high school reunion has always been a great trip, with Marty. I was going alone, flying solo and I wasn’t too sure how that would feel, I wasn’t too sure if I would be too sad, too melancholy, too lonesome to enjoy my return to my home town.

As the hue of the soil around me began to change from dark brown to red, as the oak trees began to shrink and diminish and the mesquite trees began to take over I got a little antsier, a little bit more anxious. “Yes, but only because I’m not well enough to go”, kept playing in my brain. I already felt a little lonesome; I already felt like I had left my wife behind and alone, I was building to a great pity party for myself.

I’m not a solo kind of guy. Marty and I have been married most of our lives and she was always a great security blanket and name rememberer at social functions. She was an anchor for me keeping my grounded. One of my best buds in school, Skip was going to be there so I designated him my weekend date to avoid the potential feelings of insecurity and loneliness. I didn’t consult him about the whole date thing, but what’s a best friend for anyway?

I discovered a couple of things at this reunion. No massive revelations, but a couple of things became clearer to me and made this past weekend almost an epiphany. I came to understand, by sitting and talking with old friends, where so many of my thoughts, feelings and opinions were born. I remembered, as we relived old days and talked of current days, how we would spend hours talking about life, about people, about God, about nonsense. I remembered how we wanted to reshape our world. I realized in this talking, in this arguing, in this exploring we were really developing our own thoughts and personalities; we were starting to become real people.

It wasn’t what we talked about so many years ago that was important, it was that we talked. It wasn’t what we argued about, it’s that we argued, it wasn’t what we discovered as we explored it’s that we explored. These people, these same people from 40 years ago helped me develop a way of thinking, a way of exploring and the freedom to think outrageous thoughts. This is where the parts of me I most value started.

I also discovered that it’s really hard to feel alone when you are with and around the people who helped shape you who know your foundations. I realized that regardless of the years and time this town, these people, has had a permanent, indelible effect on me. While feelings of loneliness are an inevitable part of all of our lives and certainly more present in mine than ever before; while I did miss Marty, while I often thought of how she would have enjoyed herself, I was with friends and felt a sense of community and common bond I have not felt in years. Personally, I had a great time.  In fact we had such a good time, just like years ago, our hostess with the mostess had to ask us to leave, both nights, it was worth it.

I lived in Colorado City for 12 years, for my first grade to graduation. I haven’t lived in this remote, dusty west Texas town in almost 40 years. I hadn’t been there for any time at all for 20 years. It’s a long way away, a long time ago, it’s in the middle of sage, cactus and mesquite trees and I have very little reason to visit. I lived there only 12 years of my life almost 40 years ago, but somehow this remote outpost of Texas is still my home, I’m from west Texas.