Time marches on. Although 42 years since graduation is not a year we traditionally gather to rally ‘round the Meadowdale light blue and dark blue (yes, those really were our school colors), it is most certainly a year of extreme significance.
This year is significant simply because the vast majority of us are turning 60, and I for one, am left wondering how the hell THAT happened!
Seems like just yesterday, as President of the Letterwomen Club, I was emceeing the District Girls’ Sports Banquet, reading the Walter D. Wintle poem which begins, “If you think you are beaten, you are; If you think you dare not, you don’t; If you’d like to win, but you think you can’t; It is almost certain you won’t.”
Forty-two years ago we were so fresh-faced and full of ourselves. And now—now most of us are busy turning 60, if we haven’t already done so.
I’ve got more than a month left before I must claim the big 6-0 as my own. I was, and still am, one of the younger classmates. A few, like Connie and Laurie, if I recall correctly, have “summer birthdays,” and we are all holding on to 59 by the skin of our respective root-canaled and porcelain-capped teeth.
Forty-two years ago—wow. Remember when we thought “42” was the answer to everything? (And if you immediately understood that reference, then you must also be “of a certain age.”)
So what have we learned in the past 42 years? What have we accomplished? What might we yet accomplish in the next 42 years (besides turning 102, that is)?
“Life’s battles don’t always go; To the stronger or faster (wo)man; But sooner or later the (wo)man who wins; Is the (wo)man WHO THINKS (S)HE CAN!”
The parenthetical additions are mine, of course, but dear Walter is so long dead, I doubt that he’ll care that I’ve made his poem more gender inclusive.
Hey! I’m almost 60! I’m certainly entitled to a few literary liberties!