They say that nostalgia ain't what it used to be.
In my experience it increases with age and I find myself regretting my lack of effort to keep in touch with school chums (an expression that surely dates me!). If nostalgia increases with age, memory, as many of us know, decreases.
An elderly golfer, whose eyesight was deteriorating, stepped on to the first tee and asked a retired member sitting teeside "Can you give me an eye on this ball?". "Yup", said the old man. "I can do that". The golfer drove his ball down the fairway, turned to the old man and asked, "Well. did you see it?. "I saw it", came the reply. "Well, where did it go?". "Sorry", said the old man, "I can't remember".
I can't remember if I posted news of my retirement to the Bulletin. I think not, because about that that time I appeared in the lost members list. If anyone's remotely interested, I retired in 1996 from the chair of biochemistry at Lincoln University in Christchurch, New Zealand. My American wife wanted to return to the States and took a faculty position at the University of Missouri.
So for the past four years we have been enjoying a rural existence in the Midwest, where I play at golf in an
execrable fashion and tutor betimes at the local Adult Learning Center.
Mike Moreton graciously wrote after news of my DSc appeared, but otherwise I have been regrettably out of touch.
Some years ago, I did take my new American family to School for Sports Day and was astonished to find boys competing in coloured strip. Harold McCready gave us a tour of the, almost unrecognisable, buildings and grounds.
I enjoy the OB web site and congratulate the webmaster. Browsing the list of lost members, I am struck that many of my friends at school are not featured. Presumably that means their whereabouts are known. Names that come to mind at random are Allenby, Mitchell, Ron Chester, Tony Evans, Ev Robinson, Bill Twidale (with whom I did have some contact some time ago), Jim Lidgate, Graham Richards.
Any of you read this, I would be delighted to hear from you, as well as from other contemporaries whom I have offended by omission.
Do I no longer receive the OB stuff, or has Neil Gracey stopped writing, or does my memory fail again? Anything that happens twice a year, like sex, is difficult for me to recall! :-)
Anyone in the vicinity of St Louis or Kansas City is welcome to stop by.
We'll leave a light on for you.
David (D.W.) Bullock,
School House (1950-1957)
dwlfb@socket.net
