I have always told my kids that when you are born and raised in a community like ours, you are remembered for your days in high school for many, many years. Some of the adults who remember me as a child don’t remember me for the things I have done as an adult. They remember me mostly for the stupid things I did in high school.

As an adult I don’t remember my adult high school friends for who they are now, but I remember them for the fun we had in grade school and high school. That’s why I tend to enjoy my class reunions. I like the memories. Most are good memories and some are sad memories. You never know ’till you start turning about 30 years old how strong the bonds of high school classmates can be.

About the time you start turning 30 you begin to realize life is getting shorter and shorter. You begin to understand that the differences in each other’s lives tend to meld closer and closer together. The status symbols such as who’s dating who, what kind of car you drive, where you live, etc., all seem to become less and less important. By the time you’re 40, all of you are almost in the same ship, and by the time you turn 50, you know the ship is getting smaller and smaller.

The things that were so, so important in high school are sheer silliness now. So and so said this about me, one classmate made the football team and I didn’t, she made cheerleader and I didn’t, so I’m gonna hate her the rest of my life, she kissed him so I won’t kiss her. All those silly little high school problems are just child’s play at 50. At 50 you’re thankful for your family regardless of your status in life; many of your same health problems are shared by most of your classmates; grandkids become more and more and the daily act of living and enjoying life with your high school friends becomes more and more important than those silly, petty squabbles you may have had in high school.

I have not yet arrived at the big 60, but I can only assume by then many of us will start telling health stories to each other.

My wife and I had a chance to travel over toward Cypress a couple of weeks ago and I drove past some of the locations that brought back memories. The memories are faded and many of the old locations have been torn down or changed so much that I had a hard time pinpointing them. The Cypress area is booming!

As I drove past the former home of a high school friend I began to remember a story I had written about her a few years ago. My classmate, Jackie, passed away several years ago from cancer. When we first learned of her condition we started gathering at the El Palenque restaurant near Spring Cypress Road for a weekend meal of Tex Mex.

Jackie introduced me to a dish called Casa Del Mar, which is shrimp in melted cheese. This bowl of gooey melted Monterey jack cheese is brought to your table along with flour tortillas, and you simply spoon the high cholesterol greasy goo onto the flour tortilla, wrap it up and let it ease down your throat as the greasy buttery sauce slowly drains down your arm while you’re holding the tortilla. I fell in love with this dish right away. It was one of Jackie’s favorites too and each time I go into this restaurant this is what I order.

My mind went back to a couple of years before Jackie’s passing to a class reunion we had attended together. We were spending a Saturday afternoon with our families at a dude ranch near Humble. Good food, fun and games were the order of the day. As the crowd made their way to the volleyball courts Jackie and I were walking and talking. There was a very short moment in time in which Jackie and I had the first conversation with each other on a one on one basis. It was a span of maybe 30 seconds in life when she was walking next to me and she put her hand on my shoulder to steady herself as she was kicking a crawfish clod. I kicked the next one and she kicked the next one and for just a moment we were side kicking as if we were line dancing.

After kicking a few clods she made a remark to me that has stuck with me. “Clifford,” she said, “does it surprise you that so many of our classmates have stuck together as friends as long as ours has? Have you ever wondered what made our class of 1970 seem to stick like glue to each other when other classes seem to go their own way in time?”

“Yeah,” I said, “it’s kind of neat, isn’t it? We have all made our own lives, but we are so much more the same as we get older and older.” Jackie then thanked me for being her friend.

Here I was walking side by side with a woman who was destined to leave this earth early. I never heard a bitter word come from her mouth. A person who could have been mad at the world, but here she was expressing herself to me in such a fashion. Jackie had came to a place in life understanding that her time here on this earth was limited, but instead of being bitter and upset about it, she shared a 30 second spot of her life with me and made me feel good about the classmates I graduated with. She expressed a moment of her love for life and she expressed real heartfelt thankfulness for her friends.

Life is made up from a lot of 30-second spots. As I was running the moment in time with Jackie through my mind I thought of my family and friends hoping the 30-second spots I leave in this world are spots of time in which I say good things about people and not bad.

I’m having lunch. I just finished my first tortilla of Casa Del Mar. Here’s to you, Jackie!

Clifford

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