During the past several months, whenever I mentioned to anyone that this year is the fortieth anniversary of my graduation from high school, the response was, �Gee,� or �My goodness!� or �You have to be kidding? These expressions were usually followed by, �Why, you don�t look that old.�

At first I took the comments as complimentary and I went around primping in the mirror, but one thing about mirrors is they don�t lie. The mirror and my stiff joints told me that no one was really amazed.

They were just trying to be polite, even kind. What they really did not want to say was: �My you�re getting up in age, aren�t you?� Since youth is revered in our society, folks just don�t want to acknowledge the aging process of another person. Well, I know I am getting up there and, considering the alternative, I am very glad.

I�m truly grateful to have survived long enough to be a part of this fortieth reunion. There is no place on Earth I would rather be tonight and for the rest of this weekend than with you, my old Lanier High School classmates.

This fortieth reunion seems naturally special. Forty years is more than a few years. When you�ve gone through forty years, forty trials, forty repetitions of anything, forty feels substantial. Forty is a number to which numerologists have assigned great significance. They see it as a magical number that marks the end to a long period to testing. It signifies a new beginning.

This property of forty has been magnified in the Bible over and over again. In Genesis, if we count the number of days and nights it rained before the Earth was finally renewed and the first rainbow appeared in the sky we see that it was forty. In Exodus 24:18 and 34: 28, we learn that Moses stayed on the Mountaintop for forty days before he was ready to come down and lead God�s people to the Promised Land. In Numbers 13:25 spies were in the land for forty days.

In 1st Kings 19:8, Elijah traveled forty days before he reached the cave where he had his vision. In Jonah 3:4, Ninevah took forty days to repent, and in Matthew 4:2, Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness praying and fasting; hence, in imitation of our Lord, Lent is a forty-day period. I am thinking that many of you like me were motivated by the weight of the number forty to come to this reunion.

Tonight we acknowledge that we have served our own forty years in the wilderness and have not only faced fears and dangers but have found many oasis along the way. The journey has not always been easy, but, we have gotten through it whole. We all have made it here tonight and, we all have to admit that, on balance, life has been good.

We are all here because we are thankful for the role Lanier High School has played in our development. You know, after I committed myself to coming to this reunion, a change came over me. I spent a lot of time daydreaming, recalling the good old days at Lanier. Back then it was more than �up in the morning and off to school where our teachers truly did teach us the golden rule.�

It was once a week assemblies in the auditorium, where we learned what it meant to behave formally and follow protocol and reap the civilizing effect of ceremony. It was cafeteria where home cooked meals were served�the cooks, under the supervision of Mrs. Bracey, made real pecan pies and apple cobblers and you could buy fresh cold milk for a nickel a carton.

It was football and basketball rallies in which school spirit could raise the rafters. It was homecoming parades and floats decorated with crepe paper cut into flowers and streamers. It was talent shows where doo-wop singers could croon like Harold Melvin of the Blue Notes and a boy named Benny could shake his body down better than Elvis Presley. It was Friday night dances where we perfected the mashed potatoes and the slop, flashing psychedelic under a ball of light we called a sputnik.

It was a full and interesting life for a teenager who gave up candy cigarettes for the real thing, but had no idea what marijuana and dope were. For the most part, we had the kind of fun that young people today would call B-O-R-I-N-G. But we had fun, nonetheless. As I recalled those old days, I realized now that I have never had more fun than when I was a student at Lanier. I also have not had as much of a sense of belonging to an organization as I had at Lanier.

It�s not that I have lived my life since high school feeling like an outsider, but Lanier gave us a special sense of belonging to an extended family. Everybody knew everybody and everybody felt accepted.

Since 1961, we have all gone our separate ways and have lived, I am sure, very different lives. Across forty years, we have all had numerous successes and failures, marriages that succeeded and marriages that did not. Most of us have raised children, and today some of us have grandchildren, possibly great grandchildren. According to our separate goals and interests, we chose a variety of occupations and perhaps some of us have retired already or are getting ready to retire. But the one thing we all have in common is that we received our foundation from the same place�Lanier High School. Lanier was our training ground and graduation was our rite of passage.

I have been to many places all over the world, and I have participated in a lot of different events, but there is one that I shall never forget and that is our graduation day. The evening exercises stands out in my mind as though they happened yesterday. As you may remember, I gave the commencement address for our class. The title of my speech was �What America Means to Me.� I remember writing the speech and rehearsing the words over and over again.

The inspiration for the speech came from my mother who helped me find inspiring quotations to weave together, and my speaking coach was Miss Lindsay. I wanted something dramatic to say to begin the speech and Mrs. Pitman had taught me a lot about the power of description as a hook for arousing interest and stirring the imagination.

So I started out by describing the landscape of this great nation without having been any further away from home than New Orleans. I began: From the icy waters of the Atlantic to the golden shores of the Pacific. [That I thought was very good.] So I continued painting the fruited plains, rocky hills, stone mountains, grassy plains and verdant valleys that I also had not seen. And, I ended my description with these words: �This is America�my home.�

When I quoted from William Cullen Bryant�s Thanatopsis, �life is real, Life is earnest and the grave is not its goal/dust thou art to dust returnest was not spoken of the soul.� I did not know just how real and earnest life could get. I would learn across the next forty years that these were not just pretty words. I now know that life being real will bring you to your knees and if you get up in the midnight hour unbroken, you find another level of understanding and coping.

A seventeen year old, like I was back then, speaking about life without experience may gain a little poise from the exercise, but forty years later, for a fifty seven year old, it is testimony. But I did not come here to testify. I came to touch base, to remember and celebrate the good news that we have come thus far and we are still strong. We are still the class of 1961; nothing can ever change that. I believe that our principal, Mr. Buckley, the teachers, and staff at Lanier did a lot to prepare us for life.

They helped us feel that we were the best despite segregation and everyday humiliations we suffered as we walked through white neighborhoods. We were not ashamed of being black because they taught us how to be proud. Whatever your talent or your interest, Lanier had a program to motivate you and help you to feel good about yourself. There were sports: track, baseball, football, and basketball; a drama club; chorus; band; speaking contests; foreign language clubs; honor societies; early morning enrichment; square dancing; social; proms, parades; cheerleaders, homecoming drives.. We were busy, busy, busy.

Pep rallies were major ego-building events at Lanier. After all, the Lanier Bulldogs could beat Jim Hill Tigers any old day�well, maybe we could beat them a few more days than they could beat us. At this reunion, we do not expect to recover the past. We cannot pick up exactly where we left off�too much has happened.

We are all different people from who we were back in the days when could eat a sour pickle with a peppermint stick stuck in the middle and chew frozen grapes without getting a headache. Yet, we share a common bond, the experience of being a class. Coming together after forty years is like a return to hallowed ground. This evening we honor a tradition of overcoming that was handed down to us.

The fellowship we have been sharing at this reunion is special because we cannot attain it with any other group. We are unique . No other group of people on the face of the earth has has the experience we shared forty years ago. We are a one of a kind class today as we were forty years ago, as we will be tomorrow and forever. So, I say it�s about time to become reacquainted and share our stories so that the next time we meet we�ll have less to catch up on.

I would really like to end this talk with something inspiring. I hope this little anecdote I am about to relate will serve that purpose. This short narrative is about a woman named Rose who was old enough to be one of our parents when she went back to college to complete a dream. In the year of her graduation, she was asked by a young football player to say a few inspiring words to younger generations (and that would include us). Not long after Rose received her degree, the young man learned of Rose�s passing and, as a tribute to her, wrote the following:

>�The first day of school our professor introduced himself and challenged us to get to know someone we didn't already know. I stood up to look around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder. I turned around to find a wrinkled, little old lady beaming up at me with a smile that lit up her entire being. She said, "Hi handsome. My name is Rose. I'm eighty-seven years old. Can I give you a hug?"

My final wish for the Lanier High School Graduating Class of 1961 is that we may, like Rose, stay forever young. May we keep in mind that there are miles and miles we can still go before we sleep. Let us begin the new journey with this fortieth reunion. We�ve gone through the requisite testing period and the horizon still looms ahead, beckoning tomorrows of fulfillment and greater joy. It is time to celebrate all the living we still have left to do and commit ourselves to making positive changes, small and large, for the years people call golden because they truly can be the best years of our lives.