I graduated from high school a loooong time ago, and last night Beverly, a fellow school mate, came and picked me up to attend our graduation anniversary dinner at a restaurant. Then she drove another 15 miles to pick up another of our classmates. We yakked all the way to Lucedale. Sixteen of us graduated that year, and ten have passed away since then.

We met two couples about halfway there, and convoyed down to the Rocky Creek Catfish restaurant where Beverly had made reservations. Gosh, we are all looking so darn old! My friend Sylvia's hair is totally white--everyone else so gray. (I am still brunette thanks to Clairol.) We were seated and started taking photos of each other. I passed around photos of me and my two daughters and my grandchild, now 17. I also had a winsome photo of me in first grade, age five.

Beverly was the valedictorian of our graduating class, I was the salutatorian. I don't know what happened to the statue they gave me. I have never attended a school reunion because school wasn't a happy time for me. Our family was so poor, our clothes so raggedy, I never fit in and I was often alone at recess. So I read and lost myself in books, sitting on the back steps of the school, always with a book in hand. I think I checked out every book in our school library.

I remembered exactly how my classmates looked back then--I imagine they remember me that way too--wavy black hair falling in my face, a dress with a rip at the waistline and second hand shoes, always reading. We all felt a poignancy after this dinner--we went out on the restaurant porch and talked and took more photos, reluctant to pull away. Time is flying past so quickly it's almost palpable.

susil