Music: Always on My Mind Whispers - Home Old New Orleans Friday's Journal |
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Photo Credits: Wikimedia.Commons & the following photographers: Remi.Mathis, JThomas, Dave.Conner#1, Dave.Conner#2, Oyoyoy, Paul.E.Smith, OLU, Canthusus, Pixabay, Southern.Hebrides, Free.Digital.Photos |
Sometimes I Go Back |
The title of this page was suggested by something New Orleans poet, Jim Metcalf, wrote many years ago about class reunions. You'll find it further down on the page. I looked through his books to locate it recently after my husband received an invitation to his high school reunion. They have these gatherings every five years, but my husband has never shown any inclination to attend. My own high school doesn't hold reunions, so, to the two of us, most of the people from that time period are, and always will be, the youngsters we remember. That thought is what reminded me of Jim Metcalf's "Class Reunion," his case for holding on to school days as they were, so that sometimes - when he wanted to remember what being young was like - he could go back in time and all the people and places would be just as he left them. There's something to be said for that. Memories are precious things. -- Nancy |
Most of the photographs on this page are from the Inner and Outer Hebrides, there are a few from the mainland Scottish Highlands. |
Class Reunion In answer to an invitation from the High School Homecoming Committee to attend the upcoming class reunion. I regret that I will not be able to be with you for the homecoming celebration. I must be frank and tell you that it is neither the press of business nor the lack of time that precludes my being there. Rather it is the fear that something precious to me might be destroyed...memories of those days, filled with the magnificent bewilderment of youth, when we were eager, naive, summertime-free and hopelessly in love with living. I like to pretend that the people and the places are still there, just as they were when last I saw them. And sometimes, when it's important that I remember what being young was like, I go back in memory to those days. If I were to see them now, the people and the places and the changes time has brought, my game of make-believe would be over. It would fade into the world of reality that is, I believe, too much with us. There would be middle-aged people where children were supposed to be. And the places...the vacant lots...the gridirons of chilly Saturday afternoons in autumn, baseball diamonds under July's burning sun...they would not be vacant now, for progress would have grown in places that had felt the footsteps of our youth. There would be plastic booths where tables with wrought iron legs and marble tops once held the wondrous delicacies from the soda fountain at Old Man Peters' drugstore. Gone would be the drone of wooden overhead fans that mingled with the talk of English Four and who was going steady. So, if you will, give my regrets and tell all that I'll be thinking of them. And when you hear them tell each other how they've changed, tell them that, to me, they haven't. And they never will. -- Jim Metcalf |
You might like... In Some Quiet Place - the poetry of Jim Metcalf |