There is a family anecdote told involving my uncle, my grandmother and my dad. And I was using the “punch line” from it today when it dawned on me that when it was first told to me, at some long ago family gathering, all three of them were there. I can still recall the twinkle in my grandmother’s eye as she told the story, the blush from my uncle at being found out and the affectionate smile of recollection from my dad. To them the event had all the dimensions of time and place. To me, it was just about the characters. Characters I knew well enough but not in the roles they played those many years before.

 

Though I can still picture them clearly, they’re all gone now. And when I tell this story to my grandchildren they see nothing of them. The story loses dimension and context. In time, very little time, the story that I remember being told so vividly, by and about people I touched and knew - their voices and laughter, their dress and mannerisms - becomes a simple one-dimensional recitation whose punch line requires a dictionary to understand the object of the humor. And this is how time diminishes our understanding of the past. It strips away all but the mechanics of events, reducing people and place to incomprehensible shadows.

 

So what does this have to do with a reunion? It is only when we are among others who were with us that our past is a complete picture. The stories become not simple monologues but living events with sounds and smells, complete with the zeitgeist that only we knew.

 

The time of our youth is something that is ours alone to understand ( or not, as the case may be), and only among ourselves to share. It was a time when all the world was out there before us and we had all the time in the world to explore it. No bills to pay, just the capital of our lives to spend.

 

Fifty years later, the outlook is a little different. Now there are plenty of bills to pay and a lot less of life’s capital to spend. So it is rejuvenating to dabble in the past a bit… and to rediscover a little of the excitement of looking forward to the future.

 

It’s possible I get a little overly dramatic about these things, but it was good to see you all again!

 

Dave Brown