49 years and counting, but who remembers?

My mojo walked out the back door with a hormone shot intended to bat down prostate cancer. Salacious allure could stand before me and I might ask her to step aside so I can see the Twins on TV with runners on first and third.

Without impure thoughts to distract, I turn instead to sentimentalize the valor of youth.

The 50-year class reunion happens a year from now. The Storm Lake High School Class of ’75 already claimed a date over the Labor Day weekend at the Cobblestone. We St. Mary’s folks are not quite on the beat yet but will rally. Rick Robel was our class president, a teacher and coach who should be able to organize and inspire the team.

We numbered 44 at graduation. Margaret Scott and Cindy Burns were the smartest, followed closely by me at Number 27. Middling but fair enough. I remember more about the Corral Drive-In Theatre than I do about math or physics. Who was it who started the chain saw on the back row the night I was running projectors for “Texas Chain Saw Massacre?”

Classmate Marty Case says it was the kids from Early Sacred Heart who defined us. They rode the bus to Storm Lake. Nearly all of them were farm kids. They cussed fast, brooked very little BS and were funny. They knew how to work.

Anne Landgraf and Sue DeGarmo were like sisters from Early. Anne’s mother died, so Anne did the housecleaning while her dad was outside doing farm chores. Sue would help vacuum. Afterwards as they would mix a couple high balls and spin tunes. If Raymond wondered why his Black Velvet tasted like well water …

Biz and Dave Drey personified the Early vibe. They could do a verbal pillory on you before you could spit.

Charlie Maternus (fka Dick, of Early Street) tells me that his most acute memory is of the lake. He imagined it the Mediterranean and him sailing away. Charlie got as far as St. Cloud, Minn. We hadn’t seen each other in nearly 50 years when he came up to me at a book reading in the Twin Cities. We were old friends again.

He went to St. John’s, I went to St. Thomas. Like Charlie, I imagined sailing away. Then I crashed back on shore with four kids.

It’s easy. It’s pretty cheap. Storm Lake always was a live-and-let-live sort of a place. What happened at the Cobblestone stayed at the Cobblestone, just outside the city limits. Vestiges of that character survive. Charlie remembers his first kiss but doesn’t tell.

Marty and I crept along gravel roads scheming routes out. He recalls that. I just got a text from John McDermott down in Texas. He could sell manure sandwiches. Ron Sippel did well in Chicago in the commodities. Carolyn Veehoff was a successful attorney in Minneapolis. Margaret Scott became a very cool librarian and wit in Des Moines. Marty wrote a good and important book about Indian treaties in Minnesota.

We miss Anne Landgraf, Kay Stough, Dave Drey, Dan Statz and Stephen Kleespies. I think Dan Statz could have been president if he set his mind to it but he would not have abided the confinement or hypocrisy.

We were rebels without a cause. The war raged for us in junior high. The Watergate hearings occupied the summer of 1974. The US fled Saigon as we graduated. Neil Young rocked.

Rick Robel and I were aware that he came from a Republican family, and I came from a Democratic family. We were teammates and friends. He led people by bringing them together. He was a teacher and coach to hard-pressed kids in Minneapolis. We never had differences. He is a lot like Tim Walz, really, although I don’t know that Rick could fix your snowmobile.

Sue DeGarmo was born Republican and married an investment man. We still love each other, and told each other so just the other day.

Our differences are created by people who need to divide us.

We had a tight unit.

Fifty years ago seems a world away. I am feeling it. I might break a finger from typing. I can’t remember to answer your email because I am occupied meandering in 1972 when you hear a tune by Leon Russell. It’s a frightening state, actually — other people have 50-year class reunions — but you take your comforts as you can. You’re just glad to be here even if your mojo done gone. Marty still answers the phone.