Growing Up and Growing Old

I looked at photos of my high school home room class mates last night.  That was more than the three score and ten the Bible mentions as a probable life span.  Most of us were sixteen or seventeen years of age at that time.

My eyes strained to see the faces, to read the names as I picked out boys who were my friends or we had some special adventure together.  I also looked for the girls that I had admired, some for their beauty, some for their intelligence, and others for their talents.  Of course there was Miss Reynolds, one of the sweetest teachers I ever had.  She taught well but she also had a ready laugh, smile, and a sense of humor.  Some mean unnamed boy scared her with a king snake while on the Junior/Senior Picnic.  Some were well dressed (one girl was a professional model.  You could pick her from the crowd by her pose) and others wore patches.  It seemed to make little difference.  Some lived in nice houses, some lived on farms or ranches,  many lived in an area called the Frisco Camp. 

One boy of rather diminutive stature scared all the teachers and big athletes to death.  He was a nice boy but he had a vocabulary that would send any professor to the dictionary and he could tell you off  in one minute; it would take you five to figure out what he had said.  His names was Jones.  One boy, not in the picture, shined shoes and sold newspapers just to be able to stay in school.

A varied future was in the offing for these teenagers.  One was to custom make western hats for the famous movie stars.  One was a good trick rider until he was injured in the war in North Africa.  One was already working long hours as a meat cutter and delivering groceries.  One boy became a jeweler.  Another was a musician.  Most of them were just scattered to the winds when war reared its ugly face.  Life was short for some; long for others.  God only knows the degree of their happiness or sorrows.

The war ended.  Some were buried near where they fell.  Some never returned to Lawton, OK, which we called home.  For some, it no longer held a home.  A few had never left and others returned to live out their life while watching the little city of their birth expand and change.  I returned briefly and then again from 1949 to 1954.  In a city where I once knew most every face it was a rare occasion for me to see a familiar face except for the generation older than me.

I was very busy; occupied rearing my children and providing for my family.  I worked at a wide variety of trades from US Border Patrol to a Systems Analyst for the US Air Force.  I didn't really notice that I was getting older except people I knew were dying and my wife was very ill.  In 1980, my wife died.  I felt very old but I still had work to do.  In 1983, I remarried to a family friend and my children's mother's best friend.  I retired in 1985.  I was widowered again in 2007.

When I go to that cemetery where two wives are buried, I look around and mentally call roll on my friends and coworkers whose graves I could walk directly to.

I was old enough to retire, then after a while I was too old to need hunting and fishing license and my driver's license was free.  They gave me a special parking privilege next.  I was ready to learn the word Patriarch.  I was the eldest man in our church, the eldest in both my paternal and maternal families.  I was gaining new friends, mostly through the computer and Facebook, but they are all from the generation younger than me.

I looked with joy at that Home Room picture last night and re-lived many memories while looking at those smiling faces.  Slowly, the realization crept up on me; I am the only person in that picture who is still able to look at the picture.  It's a little like that book series; Left Behind.  But God has His reason.  I don't know why.  That's His job, not mine.