Welcome to this Sunday’s Third Degree: Tough, Brief, Weekly Interrogations on matters public and private that force thinking and response. Today we target: Reunions

  • When Bob Hope first starred in a feature film (1938), one of an eventual 54, did the award winning song, his destined theme song, conjure up an essence of reunions?
  • If we think back to the normal hell on earth High School experiences, sprinkled with touches of heaven, which moments really matter or is it the whole enchilada?
  • Do a few words from a graduation, farewell speech continue to haunt: “ Tonite we go our separate ways, some never to meet again”?
  • On a partly cloudy, but sun speckled, early morning, looking out on the U of C campus, Rockefeller chapel and the Chicago skyline (from Study Hotel on the Midway—a recommended jewel), does the reality of a Southside, Hirsch High School, 65th reunion properly occasion nostalgia and more?
  • When the White Sox won over the Cleveland Guardians on Friday night at Comiskey Park (as it will always be), were we fortunate few in the suite sure it was because we were there?
  • How many knew that “Old Aches and Pains,” shortstop, Luke Appling’s, long-retired, jersey number was 4? All of us?
  • Do you think a better name for the once vaunted Cleveland Indians should have been The Cleveland Engines?
  • Was Saturday activity, a morning Architectural Boat Tour, brunch at Ascione on 55th Street, and dinner, at the Chicago Yacht Club with fireworks off Navy Pier afterward, all catalytic to comfortable, sometimes probing, conversation that looks back but is anticipatory of more to come?
  • Still, is there poignancy in parting today? Will this be the last time?
  • When the 60th reunion of the Air Force Academy, class of ’63, kicks off in Colorado next month, why the forecasted heavy breathing?
  • Is it expected (or remembered) romance in the mountains, exhilaration of being with honored classmates (only half remain now but still impressive after the wars and reality that mortality presses) or will it be the 7,250 feet of altitude? Probably that?
  • Do we breathe in reunion moments , grateful for memories, glad to lean on others and be reminded of ‘stuff and things’ whose relevance still makes a difference?
  • So let’s make it “Thanks for the Memory” and Keep Marchin’?

Socrates reminds: “The unexamined life is not worth living”. The answers and actions are yours?