This weekend of September 26-28, 2014, I am reuniting with my high school classmates. We have not seen each other in  30 years—not since our 20th class reunion.

I am excited about being with those of my classmates who are able to attend. First, because, as boys, we lived 24/7 together: classes, meals, sports, dormitory. We were a small group (15 graduates), and speaking for myself (but perhaps this is true for everyone), we developed an intimacy and an affection for each other that someone attending a regular high school cannot have experienced with classmates they saw for 5-6 hours a day. We loved each other as brothers—as with your siblings, it’s possible not to like them but it’s very hard not to love them and be there for them.

This weekend, not only are we getting together to enjoy one another, to be with the older men we have become, but for me there is something additional that is incredibly wonderful.

I have been writing my seminary-high-school memoir and have been sending installments to these guys. This weekend, I get to talk to them about what they have read—does it conform to their memories, have I missed some connection, have I gotten dates wrong?—and I get to ask them for their recollections of that time in our lives. Collecting memories at my class reunion can only broaden and anchor my memoir…

How wonderful is that! And…

This weekend promises  to be a glorious early fall weekend in Maine. We are gathering at the ocean and will be walking the shore. The weather is predicted to rise to the high 70s for all three days.

Yes, bring it on—friendship, collecting memories at my class reunion, the walks on the beach..