I went to Seacrest High School. Seacrest became Atlantic. The Seacrest Seahawks became the Atlantic Eagles. When they moved Atlantic High School out to West Atlantic Avenue (historic colored town), they dumped the band trophies in the dumpster, because they didn't have room for them in the new facility.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

Mike Long called Seacrest Seagrunt. Mike is dead now.

I found out last book, or book before last, Dan Roth is dead.

Murphy White is dead. I played basketball with Murphy White.

Milton Platt is dead, but he was a homosexual, and died of AIDS.

Julie Weems is dead. She was in AA. Her father was a doctor.

By the 60th high school class reunion more class members will be dead.

Some of my class members on the alumni pages list one of their hobbies as reading.

One of my hobbies was writing.

I doubt that any of my classmates have read anything I've written.

I just updated the list of titles of the books of my stack. 273 books. I have to look the names of the books I've written up.

The Class of '57 had its dreams.

They used to keep the football trophies in the library.

Once, when I was sent to detention, after school, in the library, I took a football out of the trophy case and started passing it around, to other juvenile delinquents.

I wonder if they threw the football trophies out.

Do they have a library in the new school, or just computer terminals.

Do any of the new students list their hobbies as reading?

One of my former classmates said he practiced law for 25 years before he realized he didn't like practicing law.

I worked as a laborer and clerk, a GI, a technical writer, and knew I didn't like it, the whole time.

I didn't like being a high school student.

I had problems with authority.

I got thrown out of so many classes, for shooting off my big mouth, I would not graduate with the class I had gone all the way through school with.

I was given one last chance.

I got thrown out of class.

I dropped out of high school and enlisted in the Air Force.

I passed my high school GED test in the Air Force.

My parents, and the high school principal, Mr. Fulton, who was in my father's Sunday School class, thought the military would be a maturing influence on me.

It was.

I had been in the band in high school. And art class.

I wouldn't have lasted as long as I did without the band, and art class. And books.

Many of us in the band, and art class, were readers.

Did anyone besides me dream of becoming a writer, or a painter?

I know Jack Neff wanted to be a painter. He's dead now.

I'm not dead. I'm a writer.

"You're born, you learn something to do, you work, you die," Ornette Coleman said. He became a musician.

I got married and had kids.

My kids are both musicians.

You could say, "You're born, you get married, you have kids, you die."

I can't think of any other reason to work, except to support your wife and family.

I supported my wife and family and I became a writer.

I worked at jobs I didn't like to keep my writing pure.

I didn't turn writing into a job. Like a Grub Street hack.

I didn't quit, sell out, or turn bitter.

Unless I'm bitter.

I see dead people. I am a dead person. A dead person writing.

William Faulkner said the past isn't dead, it's not even past.