Sat was a first. Fourth quarter I actually turned the game off, something I have seldom done no matter how dire. I wouldn't have this time either, except we had to get dressed and a two hour drive to our 40h class reunion, and were running late. In the car, I caught the last minute and the post game conference and then turned it off. There were high school friends waiting, some of whom we hadn't seen in 40 years. Turns out it was a welcome diversion from the carnage in Lafayette.

For the next seven hours, Jenny and I and the others relished in our youth amid they music of the sixties. There were a few of the usual surprises...the wall flower that made it big, the early star that had flamed out, the perfect couple that didn't end up in quite the perfect marriage. Mostly though we discovered we all were still a lot alike...sharing the challenges of careers and families and increasingly our health. At the stage where nearly all are a little too gray, a little too bald, or a little too chunky, it was interesting to see us all realize we now are what we are and accepting of each other for that.

The biggest surprise though was the number not there because they are no longer with us. They had a memorial board with 40 names and pictures...nearly 10 percent of our class of 400+. We all say we live and die with Buckeye football. As I looked at that board though and good friends that were on it, a tornado, a car wreck, heart disease, and the big one...cancer...all served to remind me that it is just a figure of speech and here was the real living and dying.

So while some out there are railing on the call in shows and criticizing on the blog boards, and are emailing the venom, I have moved on. Sunday I didn't even read the sports reports. Heck, I saw the game. We got outplayed, weren't ready, and sometimes Saturday they couldn't have blocked me if I had been on the Purdue defensive line. What more could they write that said any more than that? The sun dawned bright on Sunday. The team can go back to work, and we can go back living and dying for 3 hours next Saturday afternoon. It's a privilege the forty on the board no longer share.