Class of 1962

 Yesterday is a cancelled check.

Today is a Gift.

Tomorrow is a promissory note.

Our Class of 1962 has many cancelled checks to remember; our President John F. Kennedy, the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Space Age with Sputnik, Apollo Spacecraft, Astronaut John Glenn, the first American into orbit, Friendship 7,  the civil rights movement. Our music will always be deep in our soul. The United States slowly escalated involvement in South Vietnam, and Southwest High School, along with our safe friendly neighborhood, slowly evaporated.

This weekend is our gift to each other. The renewing of friendships triggers some of our most meaningful memories we established at Southwest High School. Our neighborhood was our security and stomping ground of community. Going to the Heights, drinking spinning wheels at Miss Georgia, having a coke at the corner drug store were all simple pleasures we experienced. The Varsity, Joe Cottons, and drive-in theaters were safe places to go, even if we rode the bus. Our families usually had the evening meal together and many of us went to the same neighborhood church. Our education at Southwest was a gift to society. Our class produced MD’s, PHD’s, engineers, lawyers, nurses, artists, teachers, inventors, bankers, business owners, sales professionals, entrepreneurs, realtors, authors, homemakers, chefs, caterers, pilots, flight attendants, secretaries, book keepers, etc. Each of you is gifted in your own way. Our classmates that are no longer with us are still touching lives with their gifts, talents or their smiles.

Tomorrow is our promissory note for more opportunities to make a difference in the world today.  All of us can choose to pick up the phone, take a plate of cookies, write a note, visit a friend, and encourage others that may be in poor health or less fortunate. We need each other. The world needs true friendship like we had in 1962. We had the best community of friends even if our neighborhood is scattered. We still have our roots of Southwest High School carved in our very being.

Jackie Joiner Quinn