Don't forget where you came from

I think there’s a song about that.

In a few days it will be 75 years since I graduated from Palouse High School. Palouse will always be where I am from, and my home away from home.

We had 24 in our graduation class, 15 of us attending all 12 grades together. We didn’t have kindergarten back then.

Palouse is at the center of a rich farming area — never a crop failure, farmers like to say. So, the kids don’t move around much. In addition to the 15 who stuck it out together, another two left after their junior year.

Among my classmates, one became a college professor, another spent time in the military, then came home and got his bachelor’s and master’s, then taught in a public school system. When he retired from teaching, he ran the family farm.

I remember him especially. I was duck hunting with him, and he was behind me and accidentally fired his shotgun.  I felt the swish of the buckshot just clear my head. It was the last time I let someone with a gun walk behind me.

One school mate became a cattle rancher, another a dentist. One close friend who was a pianist became a pharmacist. He was always known as “Mozart.”

One of my closest friends became a dentist. Two more became farmers and took charge of family farms. One was the third generation on the farm. His daughter still farms the land.

One close friend managed a Grange outlet.

Not all were so lucky, and ill health plagued them.

Recently, I attended a reunion of sorts. I was the only one of my class that attended. I know of only one classmate still living, and he is in an assisted living place in Pullman.

One of the class worked in a bank and owned an antique store, and some married and didn’t pursue careers of their own.

I have kept tabs on about 10 or so over the years. One worked for Boeing and another was in the private sector in the Seattle area.

So it is pretty clear that I didn’t forget where I came from.

Over the years I have tried to get “home” every year or so.

I had the opportunity to buy my old family home, but chose not to.

It’s a bit unusual to hold on to the past like many of us from Palouse did.

I think it was because our childhoods were positive and we lived in a town where there was such adult support.

So many from my class and other classes went on to have busy and interesting lives. We were there for each other. 

Palouse has gone downhill, and then built itself up again.  Seems like when a building burns someone comes along and builds it back up again.

I like to go in the spring and then in mid-August. In the spring, everything is green, and of course the harvest of grains comes in mid-August.

Palouse has two new restaurants, making it four in town. 

One is a French restaurant with its own art gallery.

So, this spring I will have one of the family drive me home. I am so lucky to have two homes, one here and the other in the wheat country.