Eight months have gone by since my 50th high school reunion, but I remain haunted by the wall of photos. This was a display of graduation pictures of classmates who have died, some recently and others decades ago. In all, about 50 of the 250 graduates had left us. I knew about some of the deaths, of course, having read about their terrible accidents or heard about their debilitating illnesses. But there were many I was looking forward to seeing at the reunion. There, for instance, was my grammar school buddy who, I learned, had been dead for two years because of ALS. There was the woman from my old neighborhood who called me a few years back to compliment me on a newspaper article I had written. I was told that she had tried to hang on long enough to go to the reunion, but missed by a couple of months. And there were many classmates I hadn't seen, or even thought much about, since high school, and their deaths were the hardest to accept because in my mind they were still 18 years old and alive and lively.
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To answer Friday's puzzlement, here are 10 combinations that make 23 cents: 23 pennies; one nickel and 18 pennies; 2 nickels and 13 pennies; 4 nickels and 3 cents, 3 nickels and 8 pennies.1 dime and 13 pennies; 1 dime and 1 nickel and 8 pennies; 1 dime and 2 nickels and 3 pennies; and 2 dimes and 3 pennies.
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I don't know anyone with swine flu, but I have known a few swine in my life.
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How 'bout them Red Sox!
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I have never seen a Star Trek episode or movie and I'm certainly not going to start now.
