Life Wonders

Ah, 1965. Mick's still around from then, and so are we.

One of the benefits of reconnecting with old classmates, neighborhood MacArthur friends, and even Decatur folks you never even hung out with in the 1960s is the delight in finding out where everyone's lives have taken them.

I have been very appreciative to hear that these blog postings are getting the kinds of reactions for which I had hoped. This is mainly to cause deliberative thoughtful moments about the amazing twists and turns we have all had along the way.

Or, as Stephen Day said eloquently in an email to Keith Day, which was shared with me: "I check for an update from Loren every day. Like all of us, as I learn more of the class of '65, the more I reflect on my life and what I’ve done (and what I should have done). It’s a great pleasure I look forward to every day."

What's next here?

Moving forward with this blog, I'm going to detail some quickie bios, little capsule insights into the various journeys many of us have taken. This is not about, as Rick Livesay pointed out to me, those high school labels about who was suppose to be the "most likely to succeed." There is something very hollow about those designations from high school.

From what I am seeing, the Class of 1965 has people who made radical changes in their lives and some folks who experienced the lives they always calmly wanted. Good for all of us, I say.

Honestly, we have been successful, in a variety of ways. If we have survived, even for short lives, we have made an impact. Some of our legacies will be in our children, our labor, our good works and our bad ones. Most of all, as everyone has grown to know, it will be through those we have touched that we shall know our pasts.

We all did work in some way or another, we have created various things, some have married, most have had kids, and lots of us did what was important to us, no matter what it looks like on paper, from the outside, or to others. We are straight, gay, alone, together, separated, still married, widows, widowers, divorced, confused, centered, and more. We are human.

It seems if there's one underlying theme with the Mac '65 individuals, it is that most have ended up doing what we wanted to do and retained the ability to be surprised as to where we ended up.

The bios I'll share here will be wide-ranging, from as many people as wish to share. They will not be about bragging or comparing resumes. One of the wonderful things about being older (in years but not in our minds) is that we have no one to impress any more (except for that occasional grandchild or godkid, now and then, with tales from the days before emails and texting).

Also interesting has been to hear that someone else you went to high school with crossed paths with you in their travels, unknown to either party. For example, today, because of all this classmate connecting, I was told by Dave Wooten that he was in Enfield, Illinois, at the same time I was investigating an animal mystery there in 1973. Who could have known that our lives had overlapped way back then, without this new reunion process?



As it turns out, that tale of the Enfield horror (click on that name if you wish to read about that, as I'm not going to get into the details here) has turned into quite a story. Thanks to Dave, today, I learned that, believe it or not, a murder was part of the final events there.

Like I have found in trying to connect all the dots from our graduating class, almost ever story has ended up far from what any of us could have predicted. As we know, a couple of them have been murders and others have been sad endings, but most have not. It is time to move on to a few of the happier stories. (This is not to say I won't be afraid to following up on some loose ends in the events that have open questions, regarding some deaths we are investigating, of course.)

I am very curious about you all. I want to know what everyone has been up to and what great, mundane, routine, tragic, or intriguing things you have experienced. From what I hear, I'm not the only one interested, either.

Stay tuned.