Growing up

There came a time growing up when I thought life ended at age 45.  That was going to be in the year 2000. Imagining life after that never occurred to me.  It was like I'd fall off the earth after that, never to be seen or heard from again.  Fast-forward 24 years and now I'm 69 years old. So many things have happened since that January day in 1955 when Frowin & Cynthia Stoltz welcome their sixth child into the world.  

We remember where we were during those historic events in our lives.  Where were you and what were you doing on November 22, 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated?   Someone came to the door of our third grade classroom and told our teacher, Mrs. Hershey, who was visibly shaken by the news.  Then in 1986 I was working at the Fairfax (MN) Standard when the space shuttle Challenger exploded.  And on September 11, 2001, I was working in the U.S. Army Reserve Center in Sioux Falls SD when two airplanes flew into the World Trade Center in New York City.  Our lives were forever changed.

My 50-year high school class reunion last year drew about half of our graduating class.  Sadly, several of our classmates had passed away.  Others moved away and lost touch, but enough got together that we were able to sit atop a flat bed, toss a football back and forth and wave to the crowd -- some of whom knew us but many could only guess who we were.  That night, we read the "Class of '73" will and the class prophecy.  Many of those classmates I hadn't seen since the night we graduated.  We sat in the old Legion Hall for one more class photo.   Memories of events, teachers and one another were shared. Lookin' good, guys.  Lookin' good.

We grew up before cell phones, fax machines, laptop computers, artificial intelligence, microwave ovens, DVD players, video games.  Back then there were three television stations -- CBS, NBC and ABC.   And we kids were the "remotes," seated close enough to change the channel.  Oh, and black and white television shows too.  And TVs were not paper-thin as they are now. 

Growing up in the late '60s and early '70s were turbulent times.  The Vietnam War was raging, unrest on college campuses.  There was "flower power" and Woodstock.  And the music was the best.  The Beatles shook Ed Sullivan's show.  American Bandstand was on TV Saturday afternoons. Three Dog Night's music was piped into my taped college lectures during biology lab.  It was a great time to grow up.

Back then, burning leaves in town was common on cool autumn nights.  It's one of my favorite memories of growing up.  Driving up and down Main Street for hours on end was another.  "The loop" extended from the Methodist Church on the north end to the Cenex station on the south.  Three blocks to see and be seen.  There was no stop sign near the bank at that time to slow us down.  There were usually enough cars and people talking back and forth that traffic didn't move too swiftly.  Gotta see and be seen.  And if you paid attention you may just find out where the next party was.

A lot has happened since then.  Marriages, divorces, births, deaths, promotions, job changes.  The years go by faster and faster.  But even after 50 years, our classmates still know us best.  We attended Friday afternoon pep rallies together, stuffed freshmen into the study hall bathroom, sat through typing class with Mr. Bjerke or tried to outguess Mr. DeRoos with his next government test.  

"1973 Rules!" was scrawled on the back of the auditorium.  We always knew it did.  We didn't have to be told.