There is always a way......

I recently emailed a classmate of ours in reaction to his shock at the actions of our Reunion Committee in arranging clandestinely to get the class directory shut down. I replied that there is always a way. And there is, if you are determined to provide a place where community information can be freely shared; if you truly believe that we are a community, spread far and wide and for too long with no threads to pull us back together, isolated in our own lives when we now know there is always plenty of room for classmates.

First, thank you for the stupendous show of support for the Directory. I know that much was addressed to me, but I know it is at least as much for the concept of the Directory. None of this belongs to me or anyone else. Linda and I researched and built it but it is a collective intellectual property just like Class Spirit. You don't bottle it and sell it on the street. You don't, like Classmates.com, scan a yearbook and then try to con people into buying one for $75 or $100 bucks. Our accomplishments, our achievements, our athletic records and trophies, our academic scores, our celebrations, our youthful follies when we were young and immortal. When did these things belong to any one person or group when we all did them together?

We are at a crossroad now. We can continue to push up the hill and build the Directory effort and keep building those connections to each other, or we can succumb to the malaise of most other classes and slide back down the hill. And that malaise is cynicism. Geez. I'm starting to sound like Professor Harold Hill. It doesn't rhyme with Pool. It is that grumble that says that nothing is going to change, the same people go to reunion all the time. It's just a clique. Just the other day, Tony Gravagne complained to me that his class, 1966 had just disappeared off the face of the earth. I know some local classes here in Indiana that can't even manage a 10th reunion.

Well duh folks, it's only like that if you let it be that way; if you don't take the time for one weekend out of hundreds to renew your old friendships and in doing so renew yourselves if just for a few days.  Remember, we were the generation that was going to change the world. In more ways than one, we did. Not always for the better, but at least we TRIED.

We'd really like to maintain the domain name we started with. Getting it certainly convinced the reunion committee to get a domain after all these years! But because of this dust up, we will likely have to change it to WWW.WAYNEVALLEY67.NET to get back up and running quickly. We're still working on content in the meanwhile. Especially recent pictures, folks! (That's a hint!) It should be up certainly by the weekend. I wanted to change it to waynevalley67.xxx - you know, for adults only, but Linda said "Get Real." I replied, "if all the major corporations, colleges and universities are buying up their .xxx sites so they can't be used for naughty stuff, why can't I? Besides that's what everyone is saying anyway. People should grow up and act like adults." She just gave me the wife look. Guys know the look that says "You may get your way on this one, but you'll pay buddy. And you gotta sleep sometime!" So I dropped the subject. I still thought it was a good idea at the time but discretion is the better part of valor on the domestic front.

So much like Clayton Moore, the real Lone Ranger, after he lost his lawsuit, I sit here with my sunglasses instead of my black mask. But everyone still knows who the real Lone Ranger was as soon as he opened his mouth. And I do that often. Now where did I leave those silver bullets?

And before I forget, if I don't get to say it before it happens, to all of my classmates and their families wherever they may be, please have the best and merriest Christmas of all this year from Milton and Linda Yuan