big, big day

Apologies for late posting, see below for how I got distracted.

Up early this morning to work on my new short story. I put about 2 hours of straight, uninterrupted concentration into it, and found I had completed the first draft, which comes in at 2495 words: perfect for length if nothing else. The real work lies ahead, in reworking and recrafting it until I am satisfied with it. But today is a little landmark.

This afternoon into City Hall, to attend the wedding of 2 of our young friends. Much waiting about, also the female sax player they hired had her sound system up way too loud. The bride looked lovely though.

This evening I attend a "class of '69" high school reunion- my first. I'm not even sure why I came this time, but I in the event I did show up, and it was one of those fascinating, horrific, Proustian moments. I barely recognised anyone; when someone was pointed out to me I would slowly reconstruct his youthful visage from the crumbling edifice, the archaic ruins, if you like, that remained standing, so to speak, to this day. 40 years on. Hardly surprising then, given the huge flow of time, that people should have transformed thus. But she shock was enormous. Have I changed this much? I kept thinking. I am usually thought of as being quite well preserved for my age, but 40 years must have battered me too.

I discovered some notable candidates for "most illustrious career"; one man made it all the way to Air-Commodore in the Fleet Air Arm, a pretty senior rank for anyone's money; another is a wealthy professional bridge player based in Miami. Interestingly, it was I who taught him to play bridge myself, at the age of 13, having been previously taught it my my parents. One woman is a highly paid financial trouble-shooter working freelance with some of the world's biggest transnational companies.
And Dave Thomas, bless him, already a talented blues guitarist in his teens as well as being an extremely well modulated person, has been a highly respected and even honoured exponent of blues in Cleveland, Ohio.
That year of 69 was quite a group, all right...