A SHORT TRIP.
by Dr. Bill Roy,
Kansas Congressman, 2nd District, 1970-74
Keitha died Friday, leaving our high school class of 38 about equally divided among those here and those in the great beyond, which isn’t surprising considering we were the class of 1943.
If anyone could bring our classmates and schoolmates together for one last time, it was Keitha. She had deep roots in her community and never left. So, of course, I wanted to be at her funeral. But, finally age, energy and caution dictated I not drive the 1000 mile roundtrip. But I feel a bit bereft.
It is a simple but accurate analogy to say life is like a book, with a beginning and end, and, if it’s a good book, many exciting chapters in between. As a result of staying home this week, a few pages will be missing from my final, or near-final, chapter. Not torn out; just not written. But, I guess only I will miss them.
High school is the chapter when things really begin to get interesting. And, also interestingly, Keitha’s funeral coincided with graduation week, nearly always the prettiest and most exciting time of the year.
I cannot compare small high schools with big high schools. I only experienced one. But our class was small enough that call out a name, and I can see that youngster in my mind’s eye.
Because I returned to the old home town infrequently--Dad had died when I was 15, and eventually Mom moved on, remarrying after seven years--my classmates are eternally young, as are the paths we trod.
Even though I attended later-year reunions and saw their aging faces, it is their high school faces that I retain in my mind. My imaging works much like the then and now faces so annoying flashed in TV’s “Cold Case.” For me, and I believe for nearly everyone else, ours was a happy class of easy achievers. We knew each other well. Over half of us had gone to the grade school next door, and, about eight (that’s a lot in a class of 38) attended the same rural grade school, pleasantly named Pleasant Hill.
One dark cloud, World War II, hung over our heads. And, yes, our freshman class was 55, so we had an attrition of 17, many of whom returned to graduation in uniform. For the enlightenment of those who never knew, and have no way of knowing now, there was a time when the entire country fought our wars, Twelve million of 120 million were in uniform.
Keitha--isn’t it interesting how names we knew as youth sound commonplace even when they’re not--was a girl who made high school fun and easy. She had snappy brown eyes, long wavy hair and the face I recall is always smiling. Academics were easy for her, as were friendships.
Somehow, when she was a junior, David Van Dolah, a freshman boy no less, took her out of dating circulation. They married after high school, had two great kids, one of whom like his dad, was a good athlete, and established his parents as Illinois Wesleyan basketball fans by playing at the Bloomington college, 15 miles down I-55.
Even before Sis e-mailed me Keitha had died, I was thinking high school, specifically about the graduating seniors at Greensburg, the Kansas town the same size of my hometown, that was flattened by a tornado.
I have since learned the 25 seniors graduated under a tent at the golf club east of town. Some competed in the 1-A state track meet that was scheduled for their town, but held elsewhere.
I suspect each one knew someone among Greensburg’s nine dead. They share an experience known only to them, complete destruction of their school and community days before graduation. It has probably never happened before, or will ever happen again. They are welded together forever like soldiers in the same fighting platoon. "
For me, and I believe for nearly everyone else, ours was a happy class of easy achievers. We knew each other well. Over half of us had gone to the grade school next door, and, about eight (that’s a lot in a class of 38) attended the same rural grade school, pleasantly named Pleasant Hill.
One dark cloud, World War II, hung over our heads. And, yes, our freshman class was 55, so we had an attrition of 17, many of whom returned to graduation in uniform. For the enlightenment of those who never knew, and have no way of knowing now, there was a time when the entire country fought our wars, Twelve million of 120 million were in uniform.
Keitha--isn’t it interesting how names we knew as youth sound commonplace even when they’re not--was a girl who made high school fun and easy. She had snappy brown eyes, long wavy hair and the face I recall is always smiling. Academics were easy for her, as were friendships.
Somehow, when she was a junior, David Van Dolah, a freshman boy no less, took her out of dating circulation. They married after high school, had two great kids, one of whom like his dad, was a good athlete, and established his parents as Illinois Wesleyan basketball fans by playing at the Bloomington college, 15 miles down I-55.
Even before Sis e-mailed me Keitha had died, I was thinking high school, specifically about the graduating seniors at Greensburg, the Kansas town the same size of my hometown, that was flattened by a tornado.
I have since learned the 25 seniors graduated under a tent at the golf club east of town. Some competed in the 1-A state track meet that was scheduled for their town, but held elsewhere.
I suspect each one knew someone among Greensburg’s nine dead. They share an experience known only to them, complete destruction of their school and community days before graduation. It has probably never happened before, or will ever happen again. They are welded together forever like soldiers in the same fighting platoon.
Keitha and Dave farmed into Dave’s late 70’s. Their home is just across the road from the Lexington Cemetery about a mile west of town, where Keitha now rests in peace. Like life, it is a short trip.
Dr. Roy may be reached @wirroy@aol.com
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