I left Loudon in November, 1970. I came back the first time in late December, then again in late 1971. My next return wasn’t until 1975, and then not again until 1978. Since then I’ve been back fairly regular, even for the 5 years in the early to mid 80s that I lived in California.
During those early return trips I was curious about how many of you guys were still around. I guess I was slow to realize that just as I had gone on with my life, so had you. A few times, after bumping into only a handful of you, I would just go out and drive around. Up and down the streets of Loudon, out toward Davis and Steekee, down through Philadelphia, any place I could think of. More often than not, I didn’t run into anybody. One day my mom asked me where I was going and I told her, “Out to read mailboxes I guess.” And that’s what I started calling those drives; reading mailboxes.
Sometimes these would turn into one little odyssey after another. One ended up down near the Georgia line on a wild goose chase and another took me into the mountains above Maryville, in an area that looked like it was straight out of Deliverance, looking for someone who finally realized the guy she was dating when we graduated was as big of an ass as the rest of us thought he was all along. (no, he wasn’t in our class). I found where she lived but she wasn’t home. That was the way most of the little trips ended, but what the heck, it was something to do.
I’ll be back soon, wonder where I’ll end up this time?
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