Hi all,

It was a very nice party, and if there was someone there who didn't have a good time, I didn't hear about it.

Everyone was very polite about my barbecued venison roast, and thanks for letting me get that out of my system! Next time I'll go back to turkey, or maybe a nice rib roast, and spare you the PMT (Primal Meat Therapy).

The hours flew by and when I asked someone what time it was, it was almost 1 am!

A SMALL DIVERSION

I was talking to Larry Tuch and he was saying how wonderful to reconnect with people we knew so long ago, and of course it is, but for me the fact that we went to school together a long time ago is mostly just a good excuse to connect with people now.

Sometimes I think we are on the verge (or in the midst) of the biggest change to human culture since the agricultural revolution 12,000 years ago, when we suddenly (maybe over a couple of thousand years) went from loosely knit bands of wiley hunters and gatherers to pretty highly organized communities with agriculture, the arts, all of it. Tremendous more creative potential, which has been expressed in so many ways.

And now? Maybe you could say that it started with the industrial revolution 400 years ago. Or with the car. Don't you think it's amazing out there in traffic, so many people pushing so much metal every which way across the land at high speeds, hardly ever crashing into each other or even into trees! How long have humans been doing that? It's amazing.

Or maybe with the internet, which has connected many of us humans as never before.

I just finished listening to a great lecture series (and let me plug The Teaching Company for their great offerings): SCIENCE IN THE TWENTIETY CENTURY: A SOCIAL-INTELLECTUAL SURVEY, Prof. Steven L. Goldman, Lehigh University. 36 lectures on the hard and soft sciences, how they changed over the century (completely! all of them!), and what they mean for our knowledge and understanding. He argues that at the beginning of the 21st century, science can no longer be considered a value-neutral, truth-seeking project. Even the hard sciences are influenced by cultural processes.

And riffing on this, I argue that we can creatively promote a better world, and that a key to this is the quality of our interactions and relationships.

I know it seems hopeless for this old world, and it probably is. Environmental degradation, social collapse, ever more destructive weapons in ever more hands, and we are drifting further from reconciliation, except that we are reconciled to perpetual war.

Floyd and Arnie were talking politics and both thought the presidential race was too close to call. Both agreed they wouldn't stake their retirements on a wager on this race. Floyd did say he had a couple of bets down for Bush, "but just quarters."

That's me on the question I've tried to refer to in this small diversion: Can we as a species - I call us a super-species - evolve fast enough to overcome our destructive technological abilities? If I have to bet, I bet on failure. But just a little.

Why this here? If I pick one important concept that I attribute to the experience of our ongoing JB reunion, it is the power of friendship. I know it's ridiculous to think that our small interactions can matter in the grand scheme of things. And yet, it is really the thing that gives me hope.

OLD AGE

The next day, I went to see Motorcycle Diaries in Santa Anna. I was a little early so I called Geri Fiske. I knew she had planned to come to the party. She was sick and couldn't make it. We chatted a bit about the party, and I must have said something about who was from LA High, because this OLD codger, with obvious enthusiasm at the prospect of finding an old classmate, wanted to know what year I had been there.

When I told him, he was disappointed. I guess he thought I might have been in his class, the class of 1946!

Not only that, but now through no fault of my own I have five cats, like some eccentric old person.

Gee! When did all this happen?

Peter

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