45th Parallel

An anonymous hotel located just of the freeway.
Reception rooms for groups of 10 to 100.
My high school classes 45th reunion.



These get-togethers come a little more often now.
There is always someone there who had never come before.
Even if he or she isn't well known they are welcomed as an old friend.
It's good to see each other again; every year the list of the departed grows longer.



Eating together again is a little like being in the old school cafeteria.
But the food here is much better.



As the night goes on clusters of people form, break up, then reform.
Hundreds of stories are summoned from our collective memory.
Shining moments dispelling the darker shadows of times past.

Parallel lives.