it's so strange

          to look around

and see the faces

              of so many people

          I once knew . . .

people who were

              so important

in laying the foundations

           for who I grew to be.

we've all traveled

          so many paths in the past years . . .

some of us followed well laid plans . . .

                      and others

turned in directions

           that we could have never forseen

                       all those years ago.

yet each of us

         has found success

in our own ways . . .

       achieving our dreams

                    or

  finding new ones along the way.

we've married . . .

               had children . . .

                        taken jobs and careers . . .

yet much of who we are

       and much of our success

we owe to that shared

       common history . . .

growing up in the same small town . . .

         playing on those same fields of dreams . . .

                and working through the same classes . . .