In Memoriam: Remembering Classmates at the Reunion
I'll never forget the story of my girlfriend's brother,John. He was three years younger than us and had always lived life on the edge. Sex, drugs and heavier drugs. Therefore at the twentieth high school reunion, many of his classmates were not surprised to see his name listed among the "dearly departed" in their printed directory. "Too bad about John. He was a great guy, but I didn't really think he'd live this long," were typical comments. There was, however, one person who was very surprised to read about John in the memorial pages- and that was John. He could say as did Mark Twain, "The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated." Indeed John was alive and well. How did this happen? Well the reporter in this case, didn't check his/her sources. Whenever I hear about the passing of a classmate, I always try to get three people to corroborate the story and then verify it with a search in the Social Security Administration's...