LabFiles at LightningRod Labs

50 years ago that photo was taken. It was spring or early summer of 1958. Between my junior and senior years at Willmar Senior High School, very good times. I and my friends were young and invincible, eager to take on the world. I have stayed in touch with a few friends from school, but for the most part life gets busy when you’re earning a living.

Retired, I now have more time to think about those years. Much has faded from memory or at least lies hidden until an old photo or a chance meeting opens a forgotten landscape. Sitting on my porch as I enjoy a early morning cup of coffee I sometimes wonder what has happened to the members of the class of 1959.

The world has changed in ways I never dreamed, most for the better. The old Studebaker has turned to rust and I’m slower and stiffer but life is good. I never dreamed back then, that I would end up back in the same house I grew up in.

Several of the Class of 1959 are dead and I know several have major health problems. I’m sure there are many who have made more money and traveled more than I. I’m happy for them but I have no complaints, my journey through life has been bumpy at times but never dull.

The same wife since 1961, two children, a boy and a girl, four grandchildren. That plus a comfortable retirement, good health and good friends is about all one can ask for.

It’s an amazing world, in the 1950’s I would stay up late to tune in the short wave radio. I used a 100 foot long antenna made from copper wire unwound from an old car generator and stretched from my bedroom window to a high tree. The old vacuum tube radio would pull Ham operators and foreign stations from around the world. Now I surf the internet and see the world on an LCD screen.

I purchased the first low cost transistor for 99 cents in 1957 and made a small AM radio. Now my Grand Daughter has a device ½ the size and 10 times the quality with a hundred or more songs in it.

Next year the 50^th class reunion should be interesting.