xxxxThings Change. We change, the world changes, yet unchanging is the heart of our youth.

xxxxTrue, America is always on the move. (Coming soon to a theater or drive-in near you.) So, often, we move on, to other cities, other friends, build new families. But that core formed within us, and that formed us, remains. For some, childhood scenes all live just around the block from our current address. Others must travel 3000 miles to ask if the birch tree still recalls those four interlaced initials carved onto her forgiving bark. In either case, remembering becomes a kind of journey, a pilgrimage of sorts. Or a shrine, the way the Pan Pacific Theater was preserved for generations after its use, a palace of dreams.

xxxxYet how to explain the remarkable fact of over a third of a graduating class of over 400 junior high students seeking each other out, 37 years later, to reunite on home turf? But, then, words can never adequately express.

xxxOh my gosh, is that you?! And is this the stairwell to Homeroom 209 ­ or an archeological museum?!

xxxxSeeing each other again, we remember not only how the world tasted then but we regain too our imagination of the world. Whatever dreams we projected onto each other now returns into our hands, as shiny as the coins our parents thrust into our smaller hands for lunch money or bus fare. Indeed, our dreams have lain all along, inside, stored like a yearbook or linen or old letters from a sister or lover. Here, as memories meet the light of day, dreams are Now Playing

xxxxA successful writer shows his wife and young son the school library. Five steps in and he stops, transfixed. Pointing to a shelf of books off on a far wall, he softly exclaims, "Yes, I remember! That's where I first checked out English Sea Battles, 1812-1837!" He turns, and looks the other way. "And that's where I first read the history of Rome!"

xxxxThis is the matrix where we all were formed.

xxxxThose oldies-but-goodies remind me of you. At our reunion, we laugh to rediscover "you."

xxxxSure, there's a modest fleet of computers in the library now, as well as a card catalog. On the groundfloor, there's a book sale, with pocketbooks that make Peyton Place look like Jane Austen. But the slate blackboards still remain. Real slate.

 xxxToday, kids are into retro: swing music and Titanic Edwardian, mix 'n match. Kennedy Camelot was our standard backdrop, live and piping hot (though the year book shows as many Liz Taylor hair-dos as Jackie helmets). That soapbubble hadn't burst until we'd grad-uated. The nation itself hadn't yet rounded a certain bend of its own innocence. Tempered in the thrust of life's surge, we had just enough time to stake out and evolve our personal mythologies; later, high school would be the testing grounds. To meet again at that for-mative level is to reconnect with history in the making, not history after it's been eaten, inventoried, formatted, etc. That's why high school reunions resemble a business power lunch or trade show dinner, with swap of business cards all bra-gadoccio and boast. Instead, at our junior-high level the dominant token of ex-change was pure awe, just to be and see each other again. And, as we had no secrets from each other, candor as well as awe.

xxxxThis fellow-feeling was palpable in the mix of faces. This was our event, no one else's. If you were a no-show, you were still there in spirit, your name still made the rounds of the tribe. xxxxOf course a single night or day would not suffice for reacquainting ourselves with each other. But they're enough to form rivulets in the soul, to and from such oceanic feeling as our reunion, to irrigate furrows in our brain, to keep our hearts massaged and red with compassion. And so we'll probably do it again.

xxxxWill other junior highs (now "middle schools") follow our innova-tive footsteps? Maybe. Some of our children, our grandchildren and their friends might pick up this improvised baton. May they and the five generations after them be one-tenth as blessed as we. Amen.

xxxxThe world changes. Some kids today, our age then, now no longer walk to school, at risk. What can we say? What can be done?

xxxxAs we change with the world, we discover the remnant that stays the same as it ever was. In so doing, we learn how our changing the world can come about, as quietly as in little pigeon's feet. Children's voices in a playground heard from far away. The morning light on mullioned windows of one particular Hancock Park home along the way to school that spelled the half-way mark. The bamboo grown almost as tall as the palm tree behind it. The other side of a CD of what was once 45s spiraling inwards towards a silent center. (Have you ever noticed that the flipside of a CD is mute? But that's another story ) xxxThese oldies-but-goodies do remind me of you.

xxxxYou to me were all that was wild and daring, laughing and free, joyous and full of lasting peace. And all that brought order and meaning, value and accomplishment to the unknown beyond us both. Still are. Standing on the (now smaller) lunch grounds again with you, that mollusc-grey, red-shoed, jerky-headed pigeon comes trotting up into the periphery of our conversation. "Is it the same bird?" I interrupt to ask. You look down. It looks back. Three different an-swers to the same question.

xxxxThings change. Anyway, you were saying ---------------

Gary Gach has been living in San Francisco since 1967, writing screenplays, books, articles, and poetry. He has swum the Golden Gate Bridge, and in 1999 he won the American Book Award. He hangs out at City Lights Bookstore.

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