"Everyone has a story to tell"

For those who have found themselves at this site in search of 2006 Reunion pictures , you have come to the right place. Just click on the above link and you'll be there, but please come back for more of my intuitive ramblings.


Years ago when I edited a bi-weekly newspaper, we would sit around during planning sessions and discuss stories for coming editions. At times we would throw our hands in the air and proclaim "there are no more stories to write". Everything had been written about. I guess maybe our creative juices were just plugged up.
After my recent return from my 40th High School Reunion and talking with so many old and new friends, I again realized everyone has a story or stories to tell. I could fill pages with just my own escapades that still continue to this day, but I am saving them for my forthcoming novel.
Take for example, one of my former classmates, Bob.
While sneaking a smoke outside during the Saturday night dinner, he and I had a chance to share a few stories of times passed. Bob described his high school days as somewhat low-key and suggested that perhaps I didn't know him.
I remembered him as I remembered most of my classmates although my memory occasionally needed a little jump start.
After high school, Bob graduated from a theological college . And soon after, he, like many of us at the time, enlisted in the Armed Forces and a short time later found himself in the trenches of Vietnam with the 101st Airborne. This was the real thing. This is where one second you were talking with friends, the next moment you were being zipped up in a body bag.
Bob served his tour of duty and eventually returned to the U.S. where he decided to join the Army reserves and accept a commission as a Chaplain and go back to the 101st as their link to God, so to speak.
After 20 years in the service and travels around the world, Bob found himself back in Ohio and now serves the inmate population at one of Ohio's prison.
Speaking in his low-key narration, much like he probably spoke in high school, he described what he thought was just a simple life. But to me, it was more. It was a chance to see someone who breathed the same air I breathed all these years. Suffered the same heartache and pain that all of us go through. And fought in a war that left many of us scarred in many different ways.
And now Bob was here. Here at the 40th Reunion. Catching a smoke during the festivities and meeting someone he had met before but wasn't sure if I remembered him.
I knew him then and I know him now.
And I am thankful for both encounters.