As I rewind the years in my mind, the San Angelo I remember comes into focus. Smells and sounds turn into places and locations. Places like the YMCA Baseball Fields, Grassy Meadows, Wink Hill, Bobcat Stadium, Brown’s Pool, Nathan’s Jewelers, Ricardo’s Restaurant, Charcoal House, and of course the Twin Vue and Angelo Twin Drive In Theatres.
Next, I see “The Drag”. We pool our money together for gas and then drive west on Sherwood Way until we turn our cars around in the West Side National Bank parking lot. We then drive east and perform the same maneuver at Bob Baker Camera. Then west again, then east again, etc., etc. Somehow, days seemed to have been longer in 1974.
Honestly, I don’t just see locations, I see people as well. In fact…“I see you people”. The people I shared some of the best years of my life with. A few years ago one of our classmates sent an essay for me to read: Everybody's Free (to wear sunscreen) by Mary Schmich. There is a short paragraph in that article that expresses much more eloquently the idea I’m struggling to convey:
“Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.”
Familiar sites around town aren’t as recognizable anymore. Bank of the West is now Bank of America, Nathan’s Jewelers is a second hand store, and the YMCA Baseball Fields have gone to that sports complex in the sky. If you think about it, we are not unlike these places ourselves.
However, if we look closely, we might just realize that in spite of all of our dramatic changes…there are many common threads in the fabric of our lives and those of our fellow 1974 classmates. This fabric is weaved together from our common life experiences.
“Life Happens”, and it most certainly has happened to all of us.
More than a generation has passed since the Central High School Class of 1974 wandered off the San Angelo Coliseum stage and into the future. I expect that the most recent 2009 graduates of Central High School will learn, as I have, that no matter the distance life carries us from where we started…it is meaningful, and sometimes necessary, to occasionally touch home plate again.
Butch Baker
From the entire Reunion Committee: "THANK YOU ALL FOR ATTENDING!"
Candis Rodgers Wells - Donna Smith Massey - Kerry Scudder - Chuck Hodapp - Larry Melton - Michele Williams Stout - Lori Barta Weaver - Donna Gass Robinson - Joe Lee - Sherri Lee - Butch Baker - Kathy McWilliams Baker
