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Robert Kendall
Seeing Phil Parker's yearbook photo as part of the 'In Memory' section of this website was quite a shock. I wish that I had befriended him back at Memorial.
I was reminded of the last line of the quoted section below taken from an opinion piece/essay published twelve years ago by the television host Dick Cavett, who attended Lincoln High School of Lincoln, Nebraska:
"Quite a few Lincoln High reunions went by, at five-year intervals, before I ventured again.
This time, maybe a decade or so ago, there were only a couple of classmates in the registration room. One said, “You don’t recognize us, but we know who you are.”
Then I saw it.
A large bulletin board panel displayed rows of 8 x 10 photos of some of our classmates. The shock was immediate. They were those who had — as the world’s favorite euphemism puts it — passed away. Even as a kid I wondered, is “passed away” better than being dead? Away to what? Or where? (I still wonder.) There was poor Tom H. and unlucky Ted P. — a car crash — and, oh, no! Not Sally L.!
Too many rows of them grinned out at us from their old, beaming graduation photos, faces full of life and eager promise.
Arriving at Lincoln’s Cornhusker Hotel a little late for that night’s big dinner, I was greeted by the cheery lady at the desk: “Mr. C., you’ll find your classmates at the bottom of that escalator.”
“Still standing, I hope,” I said. I was Bob Hope again.
From just a little way down the escalator, looking at the people below entering the big dining room, I saw that the nice lady had clearly misdirected me.
There were several events in the Cornhusker that night and this one was obviously one for old folks. An elderly wife helped a lame husband.
And yet there amid the elderly, was that not Karen Rauch, looking great as ever? What event was Karen attending with what looked like elderly relatives?
I didn’t get it.
I ran the few steps back up against the tide of the torpid escalator and said to the woman at the desk, “I think you sent me wrong. That looks like a reunion of The Early Settlers Club.”
“That’s your class, ” she said. “I guess that’s what happens.”
Noticeable shock. Poetry came again. “Time, that subtle thief of youth” ran in my head.
These oldies were me, and I was them."
For those of you who might wish to read the entire piece:
https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/hel-lo-youre-who-again/?searchResultPosition=20
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