The wealthy and powerful made up their minds. They want a Republican President and Congress. Never mind their last Republican President went on trial yesterday. Never mind that corruption is endemic to what they do in the Congress. Never mind 45 failed to follow the most basic protocols regarding the security of national intelligence. They are lining up at the boarding station for the Trump train.
Heather Cox Richardson reported this as the triumph of politics over principle, citing an interview of New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu:
“Just to sum up,” Stephanopoulos said, “You support [Trump] for president even if he’s convicted in [the] classified documents [case]. You support him for president even though you believe he contributed to an insurrection. You support him for president even though you believe he’s lying about the last election. You support him for president even if he’s convicted in the Manhattan case. I just want to say, the answer to that is yes, correct?”
Sununu answered: “Yeah. Me and 51% of America.”
Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson, April 14, 2024.
This is another iteration of the phenomenon I mentioned on April 13. Republicans plan to mention Joe Biden, then dissemble about the character of their chosen candidate, lying, and using disinformation and misinformation to advance him. Sununu was clearly lying when he said 51 percent of America would support 45 in the November election. It seems doubtful 51 percent of the electorate would do so.
How did we get to a place where the truth no longer matters in our politics? There has been conflict between faith and reason from time immemorial. How did we become such a rudderless society? How did Republicans lose self-awareness that their brand is one of corruption, criminality, greed, and grifting?
These are questions with a foothold in reality.
I understand we should distance ourselves from the noise and focus on doing what we can to elect Democrats in November. Let’s hope lack of a moral compass doesn’t spread within our cohort. If we do the work, morality and the truth will prevail. At least, that’s the hope.
Bluebells, dandelions, double ruffled daffodils, and pear blossoms are in bloom. Spring arrived this week. Then, in a decidedly summery move, ambient temperatures rose above 80 degrees on Sunday. It has been a mixed bag of weather this week, yet I appreciate the blooming flowers.
Eclipse experience
Monday, April 8, was the total solar eclipse in North America. At our latitude, the eclipse was at 82 percent. I made a pinhole projector like I used as a grader to see the shadow of the moon covering three fourths of the sun. It worked just as it did in the 1960s. I also tore up old ground cover from the garden in the diminished sunlight during peak eclipse. No special glasses, no trips to exotic Missouri locales. I had the full Iowa eclipse experience, home style. We know not to look directly at the sun around here.
Onion sets and potatoes
Onion sets arrived via USPS on Monday, April 8. I need to get them in the ground. I’m waiting for the right combination of warm temperatures, no rain and no indoors work to do. The pressure to get them planted is palpable. They are laid out in bundles on newspaper covering my workbench.
Yukon Gold potatoes are planted in containers. I need to round up more dirt to cover them as they grow. A layer of mulch on top would help hold down weeds.
It is also time to assemble the portable greenhouse. These are all signs of the garden’s progress.
Let’s kill energy efficient home appliances
My member of congress spoke to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which advanced H.R. 7637 The Refrigerator Freedom Act. She accused the Biden Administration of over reach. There was a tranche of related bills, including the “Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act,” the “Liberty in Laundry Act,” the “Clothes Dryers Reliability Act,” the “Refrigerator Freedom Act,” the “Affordable Air Conditioning Act,” and the “Stop Unaffordable Dishwasher Standards Act.” She asserted a form of logic that isn’t logic at all. It is an elected Congress doing the bidding of large-scale manufacturing firms. George Orwell couldn’t have written this script better.
The Pantry is Full
I skipped grocery shopping last week because the pantry is well-provisioned. Our main fresh foods are bananas, in season fruit, fluid milk, carrots, celery, onions and garlic. We had plenty to last until this coming week’s shopping trip. Our 2024 average weekly food and sundries spend is $111.47, so skipping a week of groceries helps with cash flow.
My spouse is helping family in the state capitol this week, so I made extra quarts of vegetable and bean soup to take on the trip. I used the last quarts of vegetable broth canned last year. This week, I plan to use some of the leafy green vegetables and celery from the freezer to make more. Using home made vegetable broth is a money saver.
Double Ruffled Daffodil, April 13, 2024.
I made good progress on my autobiography. As usual, it will be a rush of getting the garden in by Memorial Day. Maybe then, I can catch a breath.
The topic of abortion exploded in our news media this week. It had a short fuse. Historian Heather Cox Richardson summarized two national news events in her April 9 Letter from an American:
Yesterday, former president Trump released a video celebrating state control over abortion; today, a judicial decision in Arizona illuminated just what such state control means. With the federal recognition of the constitutional right to abortion gone since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, old laws left on state books once again are becoming the law of the land.
Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson, April 9, 2024.
On Thursday, the Iowa Supreme Court heard oral arguments regarding Senate File 359, which specified after cardiac activity can be detected in a fetus, at about six weeks, abortion is banned. The law was blocked by the high court. Now that Roe vs. Wade has been overturned, Governor Reynolds seeks to reinstate the law.
Midst the shrapnel of takes about these events, folks are missing something. Simply put, abortion is one of three primary issues Republicans intend to leverage against President Joe Biden to strengthen their weak case for support in the electorate. The other two are the southern border and the economy. None of these will gain traction without accompanying Republican lies, distortion, and disinformation.
While a majority of Americans support a woman’s reproductive rights, including access to abortion, in the street fight that will be the 2024 political campaigns in Iowa, and across the country, a peculiar take on abortion will be a campaign issue. Trump did a poor job of articulating it during his video this week, but managed to squeeze it in, saying some favor abortion “up to and even beyond nine months.” Good grief! The Democratic position since Dobbs has been to codify the protections of Roe vs. Wade. There is no such thing as abortion beyond birth in Roe, or anywhere else. It is a lie for 45 to suggest there is.
I don’t agree with Iowa Republican Party Chair Jeff Kaufmann’s view, but he did a better job of articulating their tactics to use abortion as a campaign issue. Kaufmann was asked by Kay Henderson, moderator of Iowa Press:
Let’s shift to the general election and one of the major issues that will be presented. And your party’s nominee, Donald Trump, has said some states have gone too far in the post-Dobbs era. Is that going to be something that depresses turnout and votes for Republicans in Iowa in November?
Iowa Press, Iowa Public Television, April 5, 2024.
At the end of a somewhat rambling answer, Kaufmann got to abortion and said,
My guess is if you’ve got an independent voter that is somewhere in the middle of this particular issue and they’re going to have to move one way or the other and if abortion is that main issue, my guess they’re going to see abortion all the way to the point of birth, which you can’t get a major Democrat even in Iowa to say that they are against, versus a heartbeat bill, I will put my money on the fact that they’re going to go with a heartbeat bill and they’re going to go with the Republican position any time over abortion on demand up to the point of birth.
Iowa Press, Iowa Public Television, April 5, 2024.
There is no such thing as “abortion on demand up to the point of birth.” What Democrats seek to do is codify the protections for women that were found in Roe vs. Wade. Kaufmann is spreading disinformation.
“Democrats believe everyone deserves the right to make their own healthcare decisions,” according to the Iowa House Democrats April 8 newsletter. “Especially when it comes to reproductive care and abortion.” Government should have no role in a discussion between a pregnant woman and her doctor. None.
The difference is in tactics. Republicans can’t win the election if they tell the truth and they know it. Democrats who focus on polling which shows a majority of Iowans favor the right to an abortion, or who advance positive issues related to reproductive health care, aren’t wrong. What would be wrong is a failure to confront the lies, disinformation, and misinformation presented by Republicans to win over the electorate in the run up to the November election. I would like to see Iowa Democrats be more aggressive in fighting Republican lies regarding abortion or any issue. With the right encouragement from voters, I am confident they will.
I spent the last couple of days re-writing the end of part one of my autobiography. I am getting so close to finishing the narrative, I can visualize the printed book. Soon I’ll be proof reading for spelling and punctuation, setting margins, and picking a font.
It is the story I want to tell about my first 30 years. Some history, some background, some new writing, and many recycled passages from past writing. More than anything, the narrative is grounded in the reality that was my experience living through it. Writing chapter titles unleashed an avalanche that got this phase of the book finished six months earlier than I recently thought.
I can go into gardening season with the end of this project in sight.
Formerly nicknamed cable guys pay a visit on April 9, 2024.
Our cable television provider sent a message that if I don’t get a new device installed for our television the service will end. I said okay and they shipped an encryption device designed to make the internet signal readable by our television.
To install the equipment required a service technician. We used to call them cable guys, yet no more. The new technology eliminates the need for a coaxial cable for television. The internet, voice and video provider is removing television from their existing cable and moving it to the internet. They plan to use the freed up cable bandwidth to improve internet speed without laying new cable. A cable still comes into the house, yet the television connects via WiFi.
The technicians were here about two and a half hours.
The senior technician was training someone new. I have gotten to know my technician, and he provided his personal telephone number. He said call him directly should there be any problems. He lives only a couple of miles from my home and would come right over and fix whatever cropped up. I haven’t used this availability yet would, if needed.
At the end of the repair session, I checked the two channels we use, and both were coming in clearly. Here’s hoping I don’t need to call them again any time soon.
Organic juice section at the grocer on April 7, 2024.
It was a punk week as far as weather goes. Rain and snow kept me mostly indoors. My exercise log shows more indoors workouts which are never as much fun as walking on the state park trail. I managed as best I could.
Women’s Basketball
Sunday I turned on the television and found ABC which was carrying the NCAA Women’s Championship basketball game. Iowa lost to the University of South Carolina 75-87. It was the first time I tuned into a college sporting event since I watched the Iowa football team get shutout by Washington, 0-28 in the Jan. 1, 1982 Rose Bowl. The moral of the story is I shouldn’t jinx the luck by tuning in.
Our high school class reunion planning group was talking about women’s basketball at our meeting this week. I suggested we find one of the women who were leaders in high school to lead the formal program we have planned. One person asked if we had a women’s basketball team. Perhaps there would be a leader from there. We didn’t. We graduated high school before Title IX was signed into law.
Editing the Book
I finished the final rough draft of the first 38 of 62 chapters in my autobiography. This thing may not drag on until summer. My conclusion is I have been over the text so many times, it has become the story. There were some chapters that needed work, but it is a much better draft than what I finished last year.
One lingering concern is including long passages from my journal in the narrative without editing. Some of that writing is a bit rough. When I started journal writing in 1974, I was not very good at it. My argument to myself is that it is better to show the work than sand off the edges in a new narrative. In part, that is to show my progress as a writer in a work intended to showcase my writing. The long passage I wrote in France was particularly rough, yet it serves as an example of how my journal writing started. For now, I’m leaving it in.
The other question is about passages written about long ago events since I started this blog in 2007. There may be a case to just rewrite these. At the same time, they capture a moment in time that would vanish should I re-write them. I left them in at this point.
End of Life Planning
I read Mary Ann Burrows new book, The Last Hurrah: A Living Workbook for a Happy Ending. The book is about end of life planning, but not the kind I expected. She defers to others the tasks of financial and legal advice and writes mostly about how to turn our last days into a celebration. If someone knows me, they know I am not a big one to celebrate moments or have a big to-do about life’s events. The biggest events in my life were our wedding and its two receptions, and our child’s high school graduation. We had gatherings for them. So many of my good friends have died already, I’m not sure who would be left and in good enough shape to travel for a celebration. I started keeping my own obituary a number of years ago. It is pretty bare bones, and that’s the way I like it.
Clear Organic Juice
I went to the grocer to find clear organic juice for my spouse. She wanted organic apple juice, which wasn’t available. In typical (for us) form, I started sending images of various ingredient labels and products. I offered to get non-organic apple juice. In the end, I phoned her and said, “I’ve been waiting in this juice aisle and am starting to get thirsty.” We gave up and I brought home boxed vegetable broth instead.
It was unsettling to be unable to dig in the garden because of inclement weather. The seed potatoes appear to be doing well, and the seedlings are growing. Here’s hoping the coming week find me spending more time in the garden.
Editor’s Note: This is a chapter from my autobiographical work in progress.
By 1962 I owned a camera and used it to photograph our neighborhood. It was an early form of creativity that stayed with me all my life.
I walked north from home on Marquette Street and took snapshots of the Levetzow’s holiday display at the intersection with High Street. They owned Model Dairy Company and at Christmas filled their whole yard with lighted Christmas decorations. On the southwest corner of their house was a large crèche. To its right was a lighted display of Santa, his sleigh, and reindeer. We viewed them as an affluent family, such affluence being on conspicuous display at the holidays. They had a kid-sized model of their dairy delivery van, although none of us local kids got to drive or play with it.
I photographed the holiday display at the house across the street to the south. This was a rental through which families moved frequently. Eventually, a young Joe Whitty and his family moved there when he worked at the nearby Mercy Hospital bakery. He later opened his own chain of pizza and ice cream restaurants called Happy Joe’s.
Using a camera was an inexpensive way to have fun. Because the process took so long, it seemed more creative: requiring thought, editing, and an ability to understand the camera viewer and how it would relate to the finished print. I did not crop many photos at first but accepted what the processor developed.
We posed for pictures with my film camera. I gave more thought to each frame than I might today because the results were not immediately available. There were only so many shots on a roll of film, so it felt necessary to get the framing and pose right. It was a process of experimentation and of managing expenses. Developing film could take a while, depending upon when the entire roll was exposed, and when one could get it to the drug store to be developed. Photographs were special and I believed they would have enduring value.
There is a photo of me in my altar boy cassock and surplus, one of us kids bowling, and many posed photos of all of us in the foyer. One favorite foyer photo is of Mother and Father dressed up in costumes to go out on New Year’s Eve in 1962. The following January, I captured my sister’s birthday party during which we all danced the twist. Mother took some of those shots. My parents had just begun listening to long-playing records at home and had copies of popular LPs by twist artists like Chubby Checker and Fats Domino.
In 1963 I began buying color film. Pictures survived: of Easter, my sister’s first communion, a trip to the park, Father standing next to the wrecked 1959 Ford. Mostly they were posed and signified a special event.
Mae was an influence on my photography. She purchased inexpensive cameras at the drug store and used them to record moments with the family. After researching the Polish community near Wilno, Minnesota, I came to believe her behavior with cameras in the 1960s had its roots in the inner cultural and spiritual realm filled with drama and emotion I described previously. The surviving photograph of her sister Tillie’s confirmation is one example of this. The desire to pose and capture a photo was something creative I didn’t understand at the time. We were plain folk and when we got dressed for church, or to attend an event, it was a big deal. Mae wanted to capture those moments on film, consistent with her Polish upbringing. It’s a natural impulse that presents an interpretation of who we were. Of course, we always wanted to put the best foot forward in these constructed frames.
Because photography was a technology with numerous steps, and there was a cost of film and prints, I don’t have many photos from my earliest days. However, I have a lot by comparison. The ones that survive tell me who I was and inform us about our family culture. They are an important part of remembering who we were. From that early time, I began thinking about how to narrate my life using a camera. There is a direct creative thread running from 1962 to the present and spun on my use of cameras.
In an interview with Missouri political activist Jess Piper, Iowa journalist Doug Burns captured this statement:
“I specifically don’t talk about Biden because all he’s doing is delivering roads and that sort of thing, but they need to talk about who’s really impacting their life and that’s people in the Statehouse,” Jess Piper, the executive director of Blue Missouri and the host of the “Dirt Road Democrat” podcast, said in an interview with The Iowa Mercury.
The Iowa Mercury Substack by Douglas Burns, March 31, 2024.
What in the bleeding hell? Maintained roads, bridges, airports and the like don’t impact people’s lives?
Where to begin?
Piper was in Des Moines to speak at a Progress Iowa meeting celebrating the organization’s 12th birthday. Her statement is an example of “one size fits all” political advocacy. She denies complex realities of modern campaigning and should be rejected out of hand. It is possible Burns took her out of context, yet I doubt it.
The kernel of truth in the statement is voters just expect that government will take care of infrastructure without making a big to-do about it. For example, in August 2023, as the the intersection improvements at Interstates 80 and 380 neared completion, there was a photo opportunity for local elected officials to celebrate the five-year project. No one gives two hoots in a holler that politicians were there at the end of the $387 million interchange project. Sure, the money for the project came from government. The government was doing what it is designed to do. Does the new interchange impact my life? It certainly does, contrary to Piper’s statement.
Here’s the rub. While the Biden Administration gets full credit for promoting and working with the Congress to pass the Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act, it was needed because of decades of bipartisan neglect of our roads, bridges, airports and railways. Biden exercised his power and influence to convince a do-nothing Congress to do something in the real world. The need was so obvious, even Republican Chuck Grassley broke ranks with Iowa Congressional Republicans and voted for the bill. That is something positive about Biden. Why wouldn’t we mention it? Chuck Grassley certainly does when funds from the new law hit Iowa.
What should Democrats be saying to voters?
Let’s start with elections 101: voter registrations. On April 1, the Iowa Secretary of State reported 1,521,112 active, registered voters in the state. Of those, 460,253 were registered Democratic, 608,383 Republican, and the remaining 452,476 No Preference or Other. With a diverse electorate, at 30,000 feet, “one size fits all” is preposterous.
What about something that matters more: the constant barrage of lies, misrepresentations and disinformation originating in the governor’s office? This week, Governor Reynolds released a press release supporting the Iowa Attorney General’s lawsuit against the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC is implementing a Greenhouse Gas Disclosure Rule and Iowa Republicans don’t like it. Here is the governor’s statement:
Joe Biden has become a radical climate alarmist, seeking to transform every agency, including the SEC, into his personal EPA. The SEC is not a climate regulator, and the Greenhouse Gas Disclosure Rule is not constitutional. I appreciate Attorney General Bird taking the lead on this lawsuit, taking Biden to court yet again. It has become increasingly clear that the Biden Administration wants to destroy America’s energy independence, trounce on the sovereign rights of states, and cripple the livelihoods of American workers.
Press Release: Gov. Reynolds Statement on Iowa AG Lawsuit Against SEC, April 3, 2024.
Why is Reynolds making an issue of this? The press release is intended to enhance her political standing. Anyone who met and knows Joe Biden also knows he is far from being a “climate alarmist.” If anything, he could make further improvements to protect our air, water, and land. That phrase comes from conservative talking points handed down with fossil fuel money like that provided by Charles Koch. His organization, Americans for Prosperity, is a constant presence inside the state capitol, and Koch’s Heritage Foundation is a prime driver of conservative political initiatives in the state. Climate alarmist? Give me a break.
In the last sentence of her statement Reynolds denies the reality that under Biden, America has become a net exporter of petrochemicals and improved our energy independence. Far from “trouncing state’s rights,” Biden uses the authority of the federal government to make positive change when the states will not. I trust he will step in over Iowa’s failure to regulate agriculture to reduce pollution of our air and water. Iowa Republicans won’t like that either. Biden cripples American workers? Poppycock! Governor Reynolds, work with your colleagues in the legislature to raise the minimum wage, improve workplace safety, and put real teeth in state regulations that affect workers. This sentence, along with the entire press release, is intended to distract Iowas from real issues that impact their lives. I submit there is plenty to talk about here. In a time of misinformation and disinformation our governor is leading the pack. Democrats can’t allow her statements to exist in a vacuum.
Democrats will never get away with saying only that Joe Biden is great. What we should add to our political discussions is correcting the lies and disinformation coming from the state’s highest officials on a daily basis. We also need to be talking up what Joe Biden has done for Iowans. He is doing what Iowa Republicans have not and they seem to be bristling under his achievements.
Jess Piper appears from her public presence to be a good person, a solid progressive. Iowa politics requires a difference approach from what she is using in Missouri.
Last Obama Campaign Rally in Des Moines, Nov. 4, 2012.
Beginning with a Herman’s Hermits concert at Davenport’s Municipal Stadium on Aug. 27, 1966, I’ve attended a lot of live musical performances. In this post, I write about some that stand out. They are listed in chronological order.
Van Morrison – On April 3, 1970, I saw Van Morrison play at the Fillmore East in Manhattan. Members of my senior high school class took a trip to Washington, D.C. and New York. I lived on poker winnings from nightly games with my classmates for the Washington part of the trip. Three of us decided to use one of the free nights in New York to walk from our hotel on Herald Square down to the Fillmore East and see a concert. We had no idea what we were to experience.
Morrison played Brown Eyed Girl, which was popular at the time. Some of my fellow guitar players had tried their hand on that classic in Iowa. The big event was Warner Brothers Records had released the Moondance album in January, and those songs made up most of the show. The whole thing was an experience, including the famous Joshua Light Show. I am thankful for that opportunity even though it was not part of the plan when we left Iowa.
Grateful Dead – When the Grateful Dead played at the University of Iowa Field House on March 20, 1971, I ran a Strong Trouper carbon arc spotlight. The evening started with floor seating, but the crowd promptly stacked all of the chairs on the sides and despite efforts by the campus police to bring order, the band played on. My partner, running a spotlight on the opposite side of the field house, had to leave early to strike a set at Hancher Auditorium. For a while, after campus police turned off the stage lights, I was the only illumination during the performance. I saw the Dead again on Feb. 24, 1973.
Allman Brothers – The Allman Brothers Band was something. When they appeared at the University of Iowa Field House on Feb. 19, 1972 the album they had been working on, Eat A Peach, had been released the previous week. Duane Allman died after a motorcycle accident in October 1971 while they were working on it. The idea of dual lead guitars had not occurred to me but it became a signature sound for the band. I saw them again when they returned on Nov. 9, 1973.
Ravi Shankar – An art student friend and I drove to Cedar Rapids to hear Ravi Shankar with Alla Rakha perform at Sinclair Auditorium at Coe College. The improvisational nature of their music was astounding. I can’t forget it. The date was Feb. 20, 1973.
Eric Clapton – The Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds in Davenport was host to Eric Clapton, Yvonne Elliman, Carl Radle, Jamie Oldaker, and others on July 27, 1974. I had listened to Clapton’s records going back to his work with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers. The band was clearly into the performance as the sun set over the fairgrounds, making it a memorable evening.
Judy Collins – My friend and I saw Judy Collins perform at the Des Moines Civic Center on July 30, 1982. I proposed marriage to my friend 19 days later. She accepted and we remain married.
B.B. King – My sister and I went to hear B.B. King at the Col Ballroom in Davenport on March 25, 1983. My grade school friend, Red Gallagher opened for the blues legend. There is nothing to say but B.B. was the king.
Sir Elton John – At one of the weirdest concerts I attended, Sir Elton John performed at the Cow Palace in San Francisco as part of Oracle Open World on Oct. 24, 2006. Tens of thousands of Oracle users were in attendance. I knew virtually none of them yet enjoyed the performance. Corporate concerts are just a different vibe.
Bruce Springsteen – The night before the general election, Nov. 4, 2012, President Barack Obama hosted Bruce Springsteen on the streets of Des Moines. My friend Jan and I left a canvassing operation for a house candidate early to drive to Des Moines and be part of Obama’s final campaign rally. The two of us met Obama in the receiving line after his 2006 speech at the Harkin Steak Fry and wanted to get closure on the campaign. No regrets about that decision.
Precipitation was forecast all day Wednesday so I did my exercising indoors. On Tuesday, I went to town and bought a Powerball ticket. I understand the odds of winning are against me. Most days I fail to match a single drawn number. Other days, I don’t buy a ticket. At least we can depend upon it snowing in early spring.
I’ve been working on our high school class reunion. We missed the 50th because of the coronavirus pandemic. We scheduled a 50th-ish reunion this July. The former classmates on the planning committee are all great.
When I think of high school, I return to the most dominant feature: the death of Father in an industrial accident on Feb. 1, 1969. Dealing with his sudden death occupied me during the remaining 16 months of school. It was a brutal and clear demarcation of my life. There was a before and an after which defined who I was, and who I would be.
High school was no fun. I checked things off while in school. Tried out for football and swimming and didn’t make either team. Played intramural basketball with some of my nerdy friends plus the one Hispanic person in our class. Sang in chorus all four years. Was inducted into the National Honor Society. Was on the stage crew. Got a part time job after school at a local department store. Bought a used Volkswagen Beetle to get around and began driving it to school. Practiced and played guitar, taking lessons from someone not far from our neighborhood. While this seems bucolic as written, whatever was pleasant about it vanished with Father’s death.
I was lucky to form a new group of friends after Father died. They helped me through a turbulent time. My new friends helped me cope with finishing high school, and getting through college. Not to mention their help with the pressures of a society in transition in the late 1960s and early ’70s.
I had only begun to discuss how I would live my life with Father when he did not return from the meat packing plant. He didn’t have any suggestions as we discussed college and beyond. I enrolled in engineering classes at university but couldn’t master calculus or the slide rule. Without my new friends, I would have drifted into oblivion. With their help, I graduated in four years with a degree in English.
It is good to remember all this about high school now. For that, the reunion and its planning will serve. I still have friends among former classmates. I enjoy thinking about them while stuck indoors during this spring snowfall. It will be good to see them again. The odds of that are better than winning the Powerball.
Journey Home 
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