Once again, my friends you have surprise me with your
outpouring of well wishes. Every year I unabashedly look forward to this outpouring
of friendship because it gives me an excuse to recall those faces and names of
friends who have reached out allows me to replay our times together.
There is a great mix
of people that appear on my timeline on Facebook and elsewhere: from my
professional life, from my volleyball coaching life, from my Gradual School
life, from my undergraduate school life, from my high school life, and even some
from my grade school life. We shall
leave the time period unspecified for the protection of the innocent. Thank you
from the bottom of my heart. Your friendship means so much to me, it gives me
strength and hope; it also gives me a chance to revisit memories created at
another time and another place, when we were all younger, more idealistic, and
much more innocent. For some of us of course, it meant that we had more hair
that was of our natural colors, while for others it meant that they had more
hair.
A friend’s Facebook posts stated that this particular
birthday has got to be one of the most memorable birthdays because of the circumstances.
I had to think about it and realized that he was correct and incorrect all at
the same time. It was memorable because of the circumstances of which we were
living. But each marking of our sojourn through space and time is memorable
because of friends who care enough in these troubled times to reach out through
social media to give us that little ego boosting touch of humanity. It gives us
that unexpected spark, that extra burst of life in our daily routine.
My birthday ended in the most 2020 way. I had a Webex
meeting with the people that I first met on the campus of University of
Illinois, at Allen Hall. We were all freshmen together and we have remained in
touch 40 years later. Meeting on Webex was unique, we should all be quite familiar
with the environs presented by the virtual meeting, but some were better at the
technology than others. We were all able to call in, some of us managed to not
lock ourselves out of our laptops.
We raised many toasts, we talked of our lives and things. We
all managed to stay awake beyond the dreaded 9 PM snooze attack, even though
some of us were struggling; and we spoke as if forty years had not elapsed. Those
of the things I will remember forever.
Peace My friends and Be Well
