Don Edwards, Class of 1952 By LeRoy Chatfield

LeRoy Chatfield & Don Edwards, 50th High School Reunion, Cape Breton Nova Scotia

 

Don Edwards, Class of 1952

By LeRoy Chatfield

In social gatherings, especially cocktail parties, Don quietly bides his time until the safe small talk about high school reunions emerges. He patiently defers to others in his cluster while they tell their stories about where they attended high school, what student life was like in those days, and then finally, some wistful or humorous commentary about their most recent high school class reunion. Now the stage has been set.

Don, what about you? Where did you go to high school?

Actually, I graduated from a high school in California, and my class boasted the largest number of graduates in the history of the institution. Even though we did not fully appreciate the historical significance of this graduation, it was quite a landmark occasion for the school, we were told.

Wow!  How many graduates in the class?

Fourteen.

Fourteen? You have got to be kidding! Whoever heard of a high school in California with only 14 graduates? [Chuckle] Have you even bothered to organize a class reunion?

Glad you asked, yes we did. For our 50th reunion, we met at the End of the Earth, on Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. Two of us showed up, and we spent many a day reminiscing and toasting our fellow classmates, those dead, and those alive somewhere else on earth. We had a great time, and our wives didn’t seem to mind it much, either.

As chance would have it, I was a member of Don’s high school graduation class and the other participant in the festive 50th reunion.

As is the case with other high school graduates, class members scatter with the winds, some never to see each other again. Small as it was, this was the case for our class as well. Some had died, some have never been seen or heard from again, some are known, but choose not to be. Only two have stayed in contact – and this only in recent years – Don and me.

For one thing, we shared a common past. Albeit in different years, we each attended the same boarding school, we attended the same high school, the same college, and we were both members of the same Catholic monastic religious order. As old guys now, this shared early life gave us a lot to reminisce and reflect about without having to explain ourselves.

Don went on to become a computer engineer who served with IBM. He ( his wife and daughters) lived much of his adult life in London, Kobe, Rome, and Paris. When Don reconnected with me, he was retired, living in Atlanta.  I was living in Sacramento, the onetime hometown of his childhood.

Aside from our 50th reunion, email has served as our conversational medium. Hundreds and hundreds of emails, a few letters,  four or five telephone calls during this decade of re-connection [2002 – 2011]  enabled us to revisit more than 50 years of living, working, thinking, marriage, raising family, traveling, religion, retirement, writing, and growing old. This re-connection  from the 1950’s, with Don was a personal  godsend for me, especially for my writing. Every writer, especially a wannabe like me, needs a human sounding board dishing out  loads and loads of encouragement – Don was the best!

Don Edwards passed away in Ajijic Mexico in 2011 and barely a day goes by that I do not feel his absence – such a loss!  I hope you would like to know more about Don,  here is the link.

http://www.donedwardsmemorial.us/obituary/