Mark Pilon

"It's so easy to slip
It's so easy to fall
And let your memory drift
And do nothin' at all
All the love that you missed
All the people that you can't recall
Do they really exist at all"

- Lowell George

Just joined and seeing the names is awakening some very dormant brain cells. I shouldn't have read the 'In Memory' list in one shot but I did. Dammit.

It's funny to read such a list of old names, classmates, friends; The memories don't come back all at once. It's more like watching a campfire start, embers stirring and coming to life, some flaring, some barely visible, and some ... that will take a while to surface.

Since this is posted after first reading the 'In Memory' list I can't even begin to respond to them all except it's a list that's far too long.

Some have shaken me - I lived around the corner from Patricia Devine;
Kevin Murray was a gradeschool friend; Cheryl Polansky was in my freshman homeroom, although we were too shy to talk to each other.

Phil Pomerance. Phil. Damn few words except so sorry you're gone.
Brad Stamas. Same Same.

Many of the other names are tickling memories I haven't remembered yet or are just barely there. They'll surface, they usually do.

Take care of yourselves, people, and even more, of each other.

I only began to become adept at sports in high skool ... A disaster at ball sports, I did better at waist-down things: soccer, cross country, and skiing.

Some of the things I'm most proud of post-Nicolet are physical - backpacking, rock and mountain climbing. Climbing Devil's Tower and Mt. Rainier were some of the hardest things I've ever done, and the most satisfying.

Best Nicolet memories - by far - are the summer Saturday soccer pickup games. 10-speed 5 miles to school, run like hell for a couple of hours, teams made of the friends who showed.

And bike home. We got together the summer after our first year of college and it was beer softball, because we could, maybe. But it wasn't really the same - couldn't be.