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Somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic -I apologize up front for not printing any emails you have sent me. They are still in my inbox, since I have not had internet or telephone access for the last week and will not have it until we get to England.Please include your class year with your e-mails.Please send an email to your contact and include: Class year, first name; last name at time of graduation; married name (if applicable); spouse’s name (if applicable); street address; city; state; zip code; home ( H ) or cell ( C ) phone number (which ever you prefer); e-mail address; and occupation.Even if you do not plan to attend or are not sure if you’ll be able to attend the upcoming reunion, please send in your information. And please encourage other classmates that you may be in contact with to do the same. And check the Traveller each week for planning updates.115th Day 251 days to followSchool was as usual. Went up town after school; bought some English Leather. Came home; . Took a bath and cleaned up.Troy picked me up at 7:00 P.M. then we went and picked up Helen K. and Jean. Went to school then to the '64 Senior Prom. "Dixie Belle and her Combo" played, mostly slow music. I bought Jean a corsage of orchids $5.50, Aunt Helen paid for them. We left the prom the dance before the last dance, 12:10 A.M. The last step in my final preparations for the big dance was going downtown and buying a bottle of English Leather. That was the big cologne for men at the time, probably another part of the American love for anything English. The only other big name in cologne was Jade East which was quite a contrast from the English. Each had its own marketing techniques.English Leather was sold in wooden boxes which added a touch of class to it. Even the top of the bottle was made from wood. Jade East took a different approach. It was bottled in a plastic bottle. It was no ordinary plastic bottle. It was jade green, and was in the shape of a happy Buddha. To get the cologne out, you had to pop the head off the Buddha. It was an irreverent act to perform on the deity worshiped by so many people in the world. I once heard a Buddhist ask how we would like it if they marketed a breakfast cereal called "Christ Crispies," in the shape of crosses and other such religious objects. It was about the same feeling that I had when I saw "Jesus Jeans" for sale in the Mediterranean. Eventually, Jade East quit bottling its cologne in the happy little bottle.Jade East lost out to the elegance of English Leather for the senior prom. This was the first big purchase of cologne I had ever made. Before that day I always used Avon or Old Spice or Mennen's After Shave that were usually gifts. I had never actually gone into a store and bought a bottle of anything for myself. I used to go into Woolworth's and buy Evening in Paris in the little purple bottle for Christmas presents. This was different. This was the big night, and the big date, and this was special. So, for the night, English Leather was to be the smell that would go down in my memory as the smell of my youth. It remains so today.Finally, the big night arrived. The four of us showed up at the school and wandered into the lunchroom where the big event was taking place. The motif of the night was "Syronora," a befitting theme for a good-bye occasion. As if it were taken out of the script of "Footloose," rock and roll was not to be our music of the evening. That type of music was not acceptable for the senior prom. People hadn't gotten dressed up in their nicest outfits to get out on the dance floor and dance to jungle music. Whoever was appointed to the music committee decided that slow music would be better to dance to. Of course, none of the committee ever went to dances like the rest of us seniors and didn't have a clue what type of music we really wanteI had been to a dance almost every weekend during my senior year. I had seen good bands and bad. I had seen battles between bands. I had even seen and danced to the "Thirteen Screaming N-word." I had never seen or even heard of "Dixie Belle and Her Combo." Their name was as bad as "Dixie and the Dancekings" from Burt Reynold's movie "WW and the Dixie Dancekings." Only Dixie Belle wasn't country and western. She and her group played elevator music and that wasn't rock-and-roll either. In 1964, the only fast song that any of the ballroom combos knew was "Kansas City." When someone requested something fast they got the ole' "Kansas City here I come." The song just didn't sound the same played with an organ and drum as it did when played on an electric guitar and saxophone.So, the evening was spent sitting around trying to act sophisticated and dancing nice to the slow piano bar type music. The air was filled with the "swish-swish" sounds of the girls' formal dresses. We slow danced instead of getting out on the dance floor and doing what we really wanted to do. We sat around at the lunchroom tables, looking at the crepe paper and balloons, and drinking unspiked punch. Sometimes, as if in a fit of pity, several of the boys asked the female teachers to dance. The male teachers didn't need to be brave to ask the teenage girls to dance. Some had wanted to get their arms around the students all year I suppose. Everyone had a proper time and too soon the evening came to an end. The girls in their nice gowns and the boys in their coats and ties moved their way to the dance floor and danced the last slow dances of the evening to bring the night and their big dance to a close. Troy wanted to get a jump on the crowd in the parking lot and so one song before the dance was over, my date of the evening and I danced to our last song together. It was not only our last dance of the evening, it was the last dance of our short-lived relationship.
I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for less gray hair or a flatter belly. As I've aged, I've become kinder to myself, and less critical of myself. I've become my own friend.. I don't chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn't need, but looks so avante garde on my patio. I am entitled to a treat, to be messy, to be extravagant. I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon; before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging.Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 AM and sleep until noon? I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 60 &70's, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love ... I will.I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the jet set. They, too, will get old.I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And I eventually remember the important things.Sure, over the years my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody's beloved pet gets hit by a car? But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion. A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning gray, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face.So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver.As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don't question myself anymore..I've even earned the right to be wrong.So, to answer your question, I like being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every single day(if I feel like it). 
