41 Years Later<\/p>\n
How can it be that
\nour high school graduation
\nwas 41 years ago?
\n492 calendar pages flipped
\nand slipped through our fingers,
\nslick with holidays and birthdays,
\nanniversaries, funerals, births.<\/p>\n
So many changes in 14,965 days.
\nAt times, it seems so long ago
\nand yet, some memories crackle
\nwith a crispness, so clear it could
\nhave happened yesterday.<\/p>\n
Reunited, we revisit hallowed halls
\nthat echo with steps racing the bell
\nto class, praying for the bell for recess,
\nlockers crammed with textbooks
\nwhen technology didn\u2019t include
\ngoogle, smartphones, and no hiding
\ngrades when teachers email test scores
\nto parents.<\/p>\n
Our younger selves played outside
\nuntil streetlights sizzled on, then
\nhome for family dinner, homework,
\nmaybe some tv before bed. We drank
\nfrom hose bibs, water bottles not
\na necessity everywhere we went.
\nWe rode bikes without helmets
\nor knee and elbow pads, we jumped
\ninto dirty lakes, and made friends
\nwith everyone.<\/p>\n
We grew into after school jobs,
\ntook road tests, some a few times;
\nwe got junker cars, piled in on
\nSaturday night, cruised to nowhere
\nso long as we were home by 11.
\nWe dated, got dumped, dated, went stag
\nto school dances, got dates for the prom,
\nand never envisioned we\u2019d be together
\nagain now.<\/p>\n
So, 41 years later, some missing,
\nsome gone too soon, here we are,
\na reunion of kids in dress-up clothes,
\npretending we\u2019ll never grow up.<\/p>\n
~ J R Turek
\nJune 26, 2021 Hour 10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
41 Years Later How can it be that our high school graduation was 41 years ago? 492 calendar pages flipped and slipped through our fingers, slick with holidays and birthdays, anniversaries, funerals, births. So many changes in 14,965 days. At times, it seems so long…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1325,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1325"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96780"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96794,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96780\/revisions\/96794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}