In Stone

Silent Cal got all patriotic looking for July 4th.

In Amherst, today was a nice UMass afternoon to read a book while lying in a hammock and catch a breeze off the campus pond. However, unlike this person, I would not leave my knapsack behind me where I couldn't see if someone swiped it. Is that my Springfield paranoia showing?

Speaking of Springfield, in the latest entry I published from The Diary of J. Wesley Miller there is the following paragraph:

I was surprised this evening to get a phone call from my old classmate Archie Strong. He was calling to see whether I had heard anything about a class reunion this year, but I said I had heard nothing. Back at Classical, Archie spent all his time reading books on Physics, along with Billy White, Jim Coyle and Mike Spencer. Archie was short, somewhat gabby with a sense of humor. I recall he was in the chess club and had a sister named Shirley. Archie got his bachelor's in Math from UMass and now works with computers in Pennsylvania. He is down to Earth and always has been, a little guy who gets things done. He recalled of me, "You were always a hard worker." I told him about my life now and what I know of some of our classmates and we exchanged addresses. I'll send him some stuff.

Those who knew the famously eccentric Attorney Miller will recall that being sent "some stuff" from him could sometimes be a mixed blessing. What intrigued me about that paragraph is that both Miller and Strong graduated from Classical High in 1959. That means that Archie Strong, if he graduated from UMass in normal time, would have been a member of the class of 1963. That was not just any graduation year, as 1963 was also the UMass Centenarian Anniversary Class, with the University having been founded in 1863. That hundredth birthday class is memorialized by a marble wall by the campus pond.

The class insignia is carved into the sidewalk in front of it.

Naturally, I had to check to see if Miller's classmate was among those immortalized. The answer was yes.

Here is the Valley band Fissure Cat at the Unifier Campout in Tolland, Massachusetts, which is billed as "a Healing and Expressive Arts Festival, A Sacred World Music Festival, and a Beach Party."