From: "Mark Paulson"
To: ALL
Sent: Friday, August 16, 2002 4:28 PM
Subject: A memory poem from Mark Paulson

......... I'm really sorry I can't be with you in Peoria on Saturday, but my oldest daughter's wedding is the one thing I can't miss. It has been a busy summer, with the wedding preparations, and rehearsals for "The Secret Garden", which goes into dress rehearsals next Monday. When I'm rehearsing for a show, it's not unusual for me to spend up to 12 hours a day at school, so my memories are more in the form of notes, or images.....a poem, if you will.

To my classmates: unfinished notes........old memories........

Forty years....a lifetime ago....what do I remember?
What do I want to remember.....what do I want to forget?
I don't often think about it, but when I do start down that road,
     the floodgates open wide and the ghostly memories tumble forth
     to drift across the landscape of my mind.

The crowds at the "rec" after games..... shuffleboard.....
     going upstairs.....coming downstairs.....going upstairs.....
     coming downstairs.....
     if you keep moving,
     no one will know that they aren't talking to you.....

Pretzels after lunch,
     pretzels after pie,
     after lunch.

Basketball memories: Road trips,
     black nights,
     small towns glide by through steamy windows....
     someone in the back of the bus sings "Blue Moon".....
     off key......
     "The Lion Sleeps Tonight".

Basketball games.....
Ron, keep the stats.....stay out of the game!
Locker rooms.....the smell of wet towels.....taping ankles.....
     the distant sound of fans and bands......
     growing louder as we walk, like gladiators, to the arena........
     will we win?

The East St. Louis holiday tourney......
     the ghetto, how can people actually live like this,
     why do people have to live like this?....
" Ebony" magazine.....it's just like "Life" magazine.....
    only different.
Water balloons, like high level bombs, drift dizzily toward the street.....
    Harry will lecture us.

Woodruff locker room.....
Mr. Whitaker's game plan.....
     watch out for this Knapp kid, he's just a sophomore, but he's good.....
     watch out, Harry....watch out.

Driving in the rain,
     spring rain....
     ozone....
War Memorial Drive....
     home from the youth center at the church.....
     the radio softly drones Del Shannon's "Runaway".....run, run, run, run, runaway.........run, run, run, run, runaway.......

Haze in the air at sundown;
     the smell of autumn leaves burning in the streets.
Bomb scares......
     the latest craze.
People go nervously to school.....
     some don't go at all.
I'm late to class......run.....it's just down the stairs......
     use this conduit to swing round the corner and on to the steps......
     save a precious second or two......
     FIRE ALARM!
Damn those new motion sensitive fire detectors they installed on the conduits. This is bigger trouble than being late to class!
Choices we never hoped to have to make.
Confess or keep running.
No....go find Mr. Mills......
     the moments that build character.

Helping Greg put in his swimming pool.....work all summer.....have one party.

Cruisin' main street to Steak & Shake to Hunts and back and forth and back and forth.........

Campaigns for committee of 40......
     student council president......

The shock of being elected to President of the Committee of 40....
     fall down, why don't you....
     that was embarrassing.
Sorry Becky, you would have been a good president, too.

     Building decorations for the dance.....
Carla staples her leg with a staple gun.....
     it was a nice leg.....
     always read the instructions first.
Oh, well, let's go get a couple of those new 15¢ hamburgers at Sandies.

Dances at the Pere Marquette.....
     real bands.....
     contracts to sign......
     DJ's will never be the same.

The good people we lost too soon....Pete Bourland,
"Peanuts" posters for the campaign that never finished.....

Drive in movies....
     "Keep it in your pants", said my father.....
     the only piece of advice of that nature he ever gave me.....

Double dating with Terry Fuchs.......
     do you think my date was under any peer pressure in the back seat......
     "No Not Much"
Loves first kiss......loves first loss......

5:00 am in the morning.......
So dark.....
     so quiet...........
     papers to deliver......
     alone in the silent street.......
     the headlines read......"Russians Lauch Sputnik".
I look up at the moon......so dark.....so quiet.

Rides to school with Mike Cook and Bill Coker....
     the things they didn't tell you in health class....
Lee Swardenski's little green MG....
     rides home from school.
Greg Rushford's big green Cadillac with huge tail fins.....
     rides to oblivion.

A 1954 Buick........
     robin's egg blue.....
     V8....
     stick shift....moved pretty good.
Why did my father,
     a Bradley U. Professor,
     let me paint flames on the sides of the family's only car?

I can't believe she's going out with him!
Let's follow them home and see what they do.
Here they come, hide beneath the dash.
They've seen us.....they're turning this way!
     Never try driving in reverse from beneath the dashboard....
         collision.....panic....face the music.
Pep assembly skits....writing, staging, acting.....who knew this was theatre?

Physics teachers who fly through the air...
     may the centrifugal force be with you.
Mr. Bielema's Geometry class.....watch your proof......
     Mr. Bielema's erasers.... watch your head.....
Frog brains......the smell of formaldyhyde......
     labor long and hard.....
     carefully scrape.....
     tiny bits of bone......
     almost got it......snap!

Cigar smoke in the study hall.....
     somebody wake up Mr. Wallace before he burns himself.......
     or us.

The tall guy buys the beer......he can pass.

Yellow Gant shirts (button down only),
     madras plaid shorts,
     Hellers,
     Schradski's.......

Flat-tops grew into "Ivy League" cuts,
     because a man named Kennedy came into our lives.
     The world would never be the same.....
     I still don't wear a hat.

The Kingston Trio replaced Elvis and the old Rock and Roll crowd.
     We were on the edge of a "New Frontier", but we didn't know it.

Graduation....Bradley Fieldhouse.....
     feels like we should be going off to fight a war.....
     but there is no war......
     how little we knew......
     and how much.

Sorry I can't be with you all tonight.....God willing, we'll see each other at the next reunion.