Sometimes I am slow connecting the dots. In terms of self-awareness, I would never describe myself as an old man. “Denial” is more than a wide river located in northeastern Africa. The Nile River actually flows northward through 11 different countries before emptying into the Mediterranean Sea. I mentioned in my blog yesterday that I was a freshman at Hardin-Simmons University in 1965. Can it really be possible that I have experienced 61 additional years of life since then? Do you ever wonder where the years go? I mentioned Rodney Kelley, my first college roommate in my blog yesterday. I also mentioned his brothers. We all went to the same church as kids. Six other friends from those early years at Immanuel Baptist Church reached out to me yesterday in response to the blog because memories of those early childhood friends from church tugged at their heartstrings. Don’t we all have a nostalgic sense of fulfillment when we take the time to remember the years that served as building blocks to the person we’ve become. One of the friends from those early years mentioned that she has not seen me or Rodney since we graduated from high school. Could that be right? One of the gifts that has come my way through social media is a reconnection with people from long ago. My best friend from the first grade, also went to the same church. He said of the Kelleys, I haven’t thought of them in years. There is something about the demands of the here and now that that minimizes distant memories until they fade and seemingly are forever lost. Yet the simple mention of a name from long ago activates a snapshot from the past that magically reappears and a host of other associated memories surface as well. Those childhood years associated with Immanuel Baptist Church in Odessa were good years. This morning as I allowed myself to go back in time, I thought about all the other kids in my peer group from that church setting. Seriously there were well over a dozen of us and if you included their younger siblings, it was a large group. Church attendance filled more of our time back then. On Sundays we were in Sunday School and morning worship at church. We came back in the evening for Training Union followed by Sunday night church. We met as R As (Royal Ambassadors) on Wednesday evenings followed by Wednesday night prayer meeting. I didn’t always stay for that part. The girls had GAs (Girls Auxiliary). When I was an adolescent, I never drank or smoked or dated girls who did. For the most part, I mostly steered away from dancing because it too, was on the list of forbidden pleasures. During junior high I went to a sock hop or two, but truth of the matter is, I don’t know how to dance. A kid who can’t walk and dribble a basketball could be a catastrophe on a dance floor. I suspect that our high school had a Junior/Senior prom. I can’t imagine that I didn’t participate, but I have no memory associated to attending. Interestingly, as a kid during summers I attended several church camps. Without exception, they all had a swimming pool and there was no mixed swimming. Boys and girls didn’t swim at the same time. No doubt the folks who made the rules were well intended, but fairly archaic in their thinking. Okay, so I may get into trouble by suggesting that, but the truth of the matter is that the Texas two-step is more fun than jogging and is not automatically tied to one’s lust level. This morning, I received an email from a friend who experienced “the warmest of memories” from reading my reference to Hardin-Simmons University in my blog yesterday. Hardin-Simmons and Abilene were a major turning point in his father’s life and in his. Who would have thought? It serves us well to periodically pause to remember. Childhood memories are important. We all have a nostalgic sense of fulfillment when we take the time to remember the years that served as building blocks to the person we’ve become. All My Best!