I have this excerpt from a poem hanging on the wall of my office:
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are . . .
from Tennyson's Ulysses
I think that rather well describes my high school graduating class of 1960. We had a great time at our reunion on Saturday night. Age does show. At one time, lots of beer and drinks would have been consumed. We have become sedate. On Saturday night I doubt whether anyone drank more than the one they carried in from the bar. We've spread around the country a bit: Washington, Minnesota, Florida, South Dakota, and North Dakota. Fifty two years ago it seemed like the future was there for us to experience forever. Of course, now at the age of seventy, we do a lot of looking back.
Members of some other classes were invited also. A couple of them I absolutely did not recognize. One fellow, three classes ahead of me, stood there, very bald. Finally word spread of who he was, and I went over to visit with him. I told his wife that at one time he had this curly, wavy hair and looked like a real stud. She got a kick out of that.
One of the fellas still works steadily at road construction. I asked why work so hard at his age. He said that when his wife divorced him she took all his money. Others have divorced and some spouses have died. Some who could have come but didn't, apparently didn't give a darn. After a few hours of visiting everyone picked up and left. Here I sit back in Mandan, thinking about other things.
