VALEDICTORY – FINAL THOUGHTS

With these postings, I hang up my work on Searcy Yesteryear. In the several years I’ve had this site and its predecessor, I’ve written and/or edited well over 300 pieces here.

Attending this 50^th Reunion has made me realize just how lucky I’ve been. My wife, Karen, came from a truck driving family. Over 12 years, she attended 13 schools; two different high schools. They don’t even bother sending her reunion notices anymore.

I, on the other hand, spent four of the most formative years of my life with the same group. Pretty good group, too: out of 75 members, there’s only one I can say I really, truly dislike.

Fortunately, he’s had the good taste to stay away from our reunions.

One out of 75 ain’t bad, though, when you really think about it. The “good guys” greatly outnumbered the bad. Robin Moore, erstwhile class President, saved me from making what would’ve been a really horrid mistake (as it turned out), and then kept it to himself, oh, those many years ago, for instance. And the late Billy Anderson and I shared a lot of confidences during those years.

The teen years are the life-learning years, when we learn to Cope, for better or for worse. At many, many of those moments, our classmates were there to help when we needed it. To those who did for me, my heartfelt Thanks. I hope I repaid it in kind.

Having spent only a total of five years in the Searcy school system (1 semester at Honey Hill, back in 1946, 1 semester in 1947 with Edna Pharis, and the four years of high school), there’s been only a finite amount of material I could produce on my own. Fortunately, I’ve had Anita Hart Fuller (Class of ’54), Roland King (Class of ’55), Dan E. Randall (Class of ’57), and others to help the memory box. Most of all, I had Ernie Simpson (Class of ’57), the heart of this web site. We lost him earlier this year and, I must admit, a lot of my enthusiasm for this site died with him. He’ll be sorely missed by everyone who ever had anything to do with him over the years. After all, he was the prime inspiration for Searcy Yesteryear in the first place.

I’ll still be running my mouth (if not my brain) on my “personal” site, and I hope some of you will stop by to visit there from time-to-time.

For anyone who’d like to take this site over, a little younger blood, contact me and I’ll give you all the help I can, including copies of all the archives and the photos.

Otherwise, I guess the Google/Blogger/Blogspot people will leave this site up until people stop visiting it … and then it, too, will be but a memory.

Bob Hope said it best, “Thanks for the memories …” but Porky Pig had his moments, too:

"Th..th..that's All, Folks!"

-- Tom Pry