Rolling back the years….

Because the teachers in the elementary school I attended routinely organized us in class alphabetically by our last names, I frequently found myself sitting near a boy named Lester, beginning very early on in school.

He had to do double-duty. I remember him complaining bitterly that his parents made him go to Japanese school on Saturday.

When we gathered in the school playground for our 6th grade graduation pictures, Lester managed to lean into the photo. I am in the middle there. I am not sure why I am looking so miserable

...perhaps I did not want Lester in the photo.

Except for 2 years when I attended a different junior high school because we had moved out of the district, Lester and I were classmates from elementary school through high school and into at least several years at the same 4-year state college.

Etsuko, another classmate from high school, has been organizing lunches and dinners for other members of our high school graduating class who still live in the area and maintains a large e-mail list of these people. Last Thursday she arranged dinner at a Japanese restaurant in town, and a few people I knew in high school came. And I was amazed to see that all of them were 61 years old, just like me.

Including Lester...

who complained she had chosen a Japanese greasy chopstick (equivalent of an American “greasy spoon”) because it wouldn’t take credit cards and he had to leave and find an ATM to get some money so he could pay for his meal…

And Marlene...

a school teacher, who I knew from our years in choir and who had a beautiful singing voice…

And Laura...

who has nearly lost her sight because of the ravages of diabetes.

And Amy...

who graduated from law school and works at one of the courts in downtown Los Angeles and recently went on a missionary trip to Uganda with her church…

And there were three other people, but I did not get pictures of them because they were sitting on the same side of the table as I was, so Joel, and Marjorie, and Etsuko herself are missing from the lineup. Nobody thought to have someone take a picture of us as a group. Oh well.

A few days later I had another reunion with another high school classmate, Sue...

who I met at church when we were in the third or fourth grade and who was my friend through high school. Our sons are 1 year and 2 days apart. I saw her last year at my mother’s memorial service and she came this year to my dad’s birthday party.

And the next day, there was another very special meeting with yet another classmate, Judy, who teaches mentally disabled students and has survived two bouts of cancer. She came bearing gifts for our boy, and had some very insightful things to share.

Some people flit in and out of our lives, never to be thought of again, and others make a lasting impression.