HIGH SCHOOL MORTALITY: I stop in at classmates.com every now and then to see what I can glean about my high school alumni. The Internet has been quite a boon to me in that regard; I totally lost touch with that group. I really haven’t had any contact with anyone from my class in the last 25 years. It’s like they all never existed, it was all just a dream.

But no, they did actually exist, and maybe they still do. About 80 out of a class of 180 are registered with classmates, including my self (but under a nom de plume – sorry, I wasn’t quite ready to suddenly end my external status). Actually, I registered about 3 years ago on classmates, and nothing too surprising came if it. Here and there I’d get a clue or two: so and so moved to Hawaii, someone else became a teacher, one of the party animals became a cop, while one of the really bright kids now works for the New York Times.

I never paid for the premium membership, so I just pick thru the scraps that classmates.com allows for freeloaders like myself. It turns out that they recently decided to expand the freebie offerings a bit, and us cheap skates can now view a discussion area and bulletin board. One of the pre-set topics on that bulletin board is “obituaries”.

Obituaries. Hmm. Well, I knew about two Class of 71er’s who “punched out” early. One of them was a tall black kid named Les Cason. Les definitely knew what to do with a basketball and powered our team to a state championship. Unfortunately, Les wasn’t all that good with other things in life. He got a basketball college scholarship although he didn’t have much going academically (I recall sitting near him in an English class and he usually bothered me for answers during an exam). To make matters even worse, he started getting cocky about his prodigious hoop talents, missing practice sessions and eventually free throws. Not surprisingly, he didn’t get too far thru college and was soon out on his own. Unfortunately, Les didn’t have a plan B and soon drifted down to the street drug culture. Eventually the AIDS epidemic caught up with him. If you need to know more, check out the article “Caution: Hard Times After the Hardwood” by Mark Blaudschun on the www.alathonsports.com web site.

The famous footnote to the whole incident regards Les Cason’s high school coach, a local character named Dick Vitale. Does the name sound vaguely familiar? Well, in another month or so perhaps it will, once the NCAA basketball tournaments take over the sports airwaves. Cason’s success brought some big-time sports guys into our town. Seeing this, the coach decided to go for the gold ring too. He managed to get a pro coaching contract in Detroit, but just like Les, he washed out on his big chance. But unlike Les Cason, “Dickie V” did have a Plan B (or perhaps better said, a Plan B presented itself to him). Cable TV was just getting started at the time, and a little-known sports channel called ESPN was looking for college basketball commentators. I can’t image that the job paid much, but Dick Vitale figured that it was worth a shot. So it gave his new gig lots of enthusiasm, e.g. “Did you see that? AWWWWE-some, BAY-BEEEEE!!!!” And somehow it caught on. In the late 90s, Vitale’s agents parleyed his “awesome baby” into a series of advertising contracts that took him semi-national. And now, my high school will always be famous for producing an extraordinary car dealership pitch man.

OK, so RIP Les Cason. And Albert, the other one whose passing I knew of — Albert didn’t seem all that happy with life, he was a bit different (and thus wasn’t very popular). So it didn’t surprise me to hear that he had a short life, although that did sadden me as I used to talk to him now and then (hey, I was different and not all that popular either). But now I know that more have crossed the river of eternity since then. To be exact, seven more, for a total of nine. Nine out of 180; 5% of my class. Dead. Totally gone. I’m not sure if this is statistically unusual; we all are hitting the 50 year point, so you’ve got to expect some losses. Still, it hurts when you see the actual names, when the statistical abstraction translates into real faces that you once saw in the hallways and classrooms most every day.

Yea, I know, 95% of my angst here is just the fear of it happening to me. But there is a small sliver of regret on my part, a feeling of sadness that I didn’t stay up with them, that I didn’t share anything that in any way enriched their lives, that I wasn’t able to relate very closely with those who passed (or with most of the others of my class). Nor have I stayed up very well with any other group that I was ever a part of, whether in school, at work, in church, etc. Yea, I have my consolations; I’m an INFJ, a sensitive and shy person who ain’t all that handsome and who doesn’t naturally attract people. I mean, back in high school, up thru junior year, I was the subject of much unpleasant bullying and jeering. Admittedly, it was only a handful of jerks who did this, but the silent denial by everyone else (including many teachers) while it was happening kind of turned me off to the whole bunch.

But dead. I mean, that’s kind of extreme. That blows me away, as the expression went back in my time. So, I’ll do what little I can here for all of you: I now offer my tribute to all of my high school compatriots who have fallen: ALBERT, LES, LINDA, GARY, JACKIE, MIKE, STEVEN, LINDA, and last but certainly not least, PAMELA. My web site is not equipped for multi-media, but if it was, I’d be playing Dire Straits’ “Local Hero” right now, the live version from the Very Best Of album (Sultans of Swing). And I’d include the applause. Cause you guys all deserve it.

But please. Let’s not add anyone more to this list anytime soon, OK?