Reunion Reflections

The following was authored and presented by Dale Milligan Padgett on Saturday night at Reunion XXX.

Do you think we’ll remember anyone’s name?

Will we see in those faces anything that’s the same?

A glimmer, a glimpse, or a giggle we’ll know----

Just something familiar, even if faintly so?

I’m not even sure I can recognize me

In this tech-no’, grown-up world, I’m a little lost at sea.

Thirty years will most likely have taken their toll…

So long since we blithely answered the roll.

Our education was classic, of a standard above most.

My children think we were hippies…. “No way, Man!!”  I proudly boast.

Blessed with an innocent optimism, we were, ready to conquer all foes.

Still children in reality…..but Confident, even Cocky, I suppose.

Leafing through the yearbook now, all these years hence,

These people look perfectly normal to me…kind-a cool, with common sense.

We were young, fresh, and free….How well we know that now.

The cares of responsibility still far-fetched somehow.

It really was a wonderful life, filled with hopefulness and dreams.

Long hair and Levi’s, and our share of silly schemes.

Can you believe we sold PLACEMATS??? 

( or... wore ORANGE robes? )  EGAD!!

Here’s an idea….we could put water in small bottles for a $ buck….

(But nobody would buy into that.)

The history we share is like rubber cement….

Cohesive, malleable…. but somehow, also permanent.

Today’s world in the Present Tense is reduced to labels and letters.

(HIV….ADD…. IM….PC….CD…. )  Once foreign, now all too familiar.

Columbine.  “Amber Alert.”  The horror of “ 9/11.”

Never, never, ever could we imagine these things in the spring of ’77.

When did life get so complicated?  Was there a page that turned one day?

When was that moment?  I missed it.  It just snuck in and decided to stay.

Please pardon my melancholy.  (Nostalgic reflection, I fear…)

Thirty years?  No way!  No how!  Which way do we go from here?

So…(collective sigh)…..Carpe Diem. 

Dreadnaughts Rock!  Anchors Aweigh!!

Nulli Secundus Forever….

Raise the sails…Ride the winds…Come what may.

Dale Milligan Padgett