By Mike Johnson
This is the year of my 50th high school reunion so I’ve started getting the emails about this summer’s events.
There were 660 members in that class of 1975.
Our suburb of Minneapolis had a population of 50,000 back then.
I long ago escaped heavily-populated areas.
As the norm, just a few people from that class are doing all the work to arrange a venue, events and communicate to the rest of us.
I was never famous or infamous in high school.
I blended invisibly into the mass of average.
I had my own small circle of buddies who had shared history from elementary, junior high and high school.
One of the mainstays of our group died in 2020.
This morning, reading the “In Memoriam” page on our reunion website, I learned another passed away late last year.
We’d lost touch by the time we’d turned 20 and never reconnected.
I’d carried pleasant memories of him all this time.
Over the years, I’d asked others in our circle – who still lived in Minneapolis -- if they’d heard from him.
But they’d lost touch too.
It’s funny who you cling to.
I still phone-chat with my childhood best-buddy a couple times a month.
He still lives in Minneapolis and we connect whenever I go back to visit.
Then we usually reunite with others from our pack and reminisce.
There are five left in our core group counting me.
The others all live in Minneapolis.
I stay connected with some other kids and relatives from childhood too.
Some I’ve known since kindergarten – when most of my memories started.
Life is a long journey and it’s sweeter with some familiar faces dropping in along the way.
Especially when they share so many of the same magical childhood memories as you.
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