Well, it's begun. Classmates dying, either by disease like cancer--Karen Krebsbach, or suddenly of a heart attack like Steve Lucht, or by suicide, although no one knows what happened to Scott Simpkins and how he died. But it sounds like it was by his own hand as Cyndy said he'd been depressed lately.

It all comes home to me especially after this past weekend. Being in Marshfield for my 35th high school class reunion and out of a class of 59, only about 12 of us, plus our spouses, showed up. After not seeing some folks for some 35 years, you are immediately struck by how everyone has aged, some for the better, some for the worse, and how some people never change. Judy Hoff looked exactly the same. So did Allen Jicinsky. Eerie.

And then the ones who had to tell me who they were like Patty Carlson and Ken Schultz. How can people change that drastically? And then you recall that when we graduated at ages 17 and 18, some of us hadn't fully matured. Heck. I didn't get a growth spurt--albeit a small one--until college and even a few years after. I didn't get boobs until I was in my 20s, after all those years of praying every night "to develop."

I and my contemporaries...we're 52 years old...middle-aged...nearly everyone at the reunion has adult children and some have grandchildren...like Juleen with her five grandkids. Wow. My reality has really been completely different all these years.

...so lots of memories and thoughts about high school and the past, and then to hear, tonight from Cyndy Storm that Scott Simpkins has died. Dust to dust.