It was the best of times....It was the worst of times....
I was going to explain what Dickens was talking about when he wrote this......One of his best known books.
As I have written, it was my 50th high school reunion last evening. And today, I am even more glad I did not attend.
There were people there who I did not graduate with and several I did, well, I am glad I did not see again in my life.
An old flame was there, and I made a promise to myself that I would do everything I could to avoid her. I know, I know, not very Christian, but you know, they along with the people I went to school with, well, while I love band, I love many of my academic classes, I hated much of the social potion of school, and it really wasn't until I started taking 300 and 400 level ( junior-senior) level classes in history, government, economics that I liked college.
I never really "fit-in" at school until I got in with really serious college history nerds. The other outcasts.
Perhaps it is why I really like those I taught in school who were just " different." Be it their religious beliefs, their liking books over sports, those who were LGBT, those who were a little on the outlaw side of the world.... Those who saw the world differently...Those people who were a square peg in a round hole world....
Kerry Thomas believe it or not was a square peg.
To survive in a senior classroom, I had to be something I really wasn't. I probably should have seen a counselor for my past at some point. But I had taken those "pastoral counseling" classes in seminary and knew what they were going to say, or do, so, why bother?
I don't know, I was depressed all day yesterday. I had thought about high school and how it sucked many times more than it was it was fun.
I doubt I have anything in common with them....I've been to England 4 times in the last 8 years,.I shook the Archbishop of York's hand Holy Week after Evensong...I think they might speak English....I spent 6 weeks in China for my son/DIL's wedding, a a city of 9 million none of them have ever heard of.....I doubt most of those Vidorians can find China on a map.... ( I say all those, a friend of mine will read this blog who just got back from Europe whose wife I graduated with, but they're very bright folks, I was a groomsman at his wedding, heck, my mother played the organ for the wedding.....And someone will get mad because the wedding was at the Catholic Church in Vidor. If you've not, it's very nice, you need to go one day for mass. I used to know the Priest, I no longer do. That said, I did know the Deacon at the last funeral I attended)
It wasn't until my junior year in university that I started to enjoy it.....And it did not really come together until I met my wife my senior year, and I was the only senior in the euphonium,baritones, and I did everything I could to try and take care of them...
Then, make it even worse, I find out my best friend in high school died while we were on the Pittsburgh, Seattle, Alaska trip.
Liver cancer.
I had been his best man at his wedding.
He had moved to the Houston area, gotten a position at a refinery and put Vidor in his rear view mirror. He had cut off all contact with Orange County, and rarely I heard from him.On purpose. He had another life. I don't blame him... It is sort of like me and Vidor Other than my mother living there, I refuse to go to Vidor. I don't care if the place burns to the ground. I care more about and more contact concerning Buna.
I understand why many of you feel the same way about Buna....And why you are in the Northeast, or Indiana, or California...Houston,Austin, Dallas, etc...etc....etc....And I know many of you have been gone for several years now, but still want to move back...Think long about it....It wasn't what you think it was, and what it is today is so much different.
I understand why my son lives in Seattle and why if they move back to Texas, it'll be back to Houston......Or Austin....Or Dallas....Or instead of Texas.....Tokyo....
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