The Unexpected Joy of Making New Old Friends

By John Dunham

The discovery of new old friends is a joy they didn't tell me about. Ten days ago, Jim Neil and I spoke for the first time in 50 years (I can't believe I'm typing, acknowledging or publicly admitting that). While I looked forward to the call (okay, it was Zoom) I didn't have any particular expectations. The ease and connection that flooded in deeply struck me as an unexpected, hidden and joyful artifact of choosing to join something so seemingly musty & stuffy on the surface as a 50th HS reunion.

One of the topics that came up was this recently resurfaced newspaper clipping from 1971, originally published in the Norwich Bulletin. Speaking about it briefly with Jim, it became immediately clear there was much to unpack in that photo and we were just the right people to do that. So we connected earlier this week for a half hour and memorialized our conversation in this video.

Give it a look. It renders more color than I could have imagined as to the appropriateness of our LHS Class of '73 choice to honor Gary Atkinson with an evergreen scholarship in his name. Huge hat tip and thanks to Jim Neil for jumping in and going along with my crazy idea.

Oh, if you haven't already done so, you can donate to The Gary Atkinson Imagine Scholarship (Sponsored by LHS Class of 1973) here. It's a great cause.