Thursday October 26, 2006 Dear Friends

When my grandfather grew old, he became what we then called senile. He couldn't remember current events or people, but he could clearly recall events and people from his childhood and youth. When my father grew old, he wrote his memories of childhood in Wichita, Kansas during the 1920s. His details were clear and crisp and very informative. He never lost any of his mental facilities but his fondness for the world of his youth was clear. This world we live in now was not the world he remembered or liked to think about. The world was moving at a faster pace than he cared to go.

Now that I have reached retirement age, I find myself thinking more often about the world of my youth and the friends that I have left behind. It seemed that the world of my youth was slower paced and the flavor of life was sweeter and simpler. Now I find that friends of my youth are facing the ravages of age and some are dying and I feel my time slipping away. I see earlier generations fading from memory and my generation, which I always thought of as young, now becoming the elder generation. I know that this is the way of life, but I still feel young in my mind and I find that life is so sweet and so short. I wish that I could have held on to all those great friends of my youth. We had a special bond that held us together and we looked forward anxiously to the benefits of being in complete control of our lives as we became full fledged adults. Those days were just the other day in my memory and are clear and sweet
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To those friends from my youth, I wish to say that you helped make my memories very dear and you helped mold me into the man I am now. Thank you all.