Blokes I went to school with...

Is it the current isolation or the all too fast approach to middle age that has prompted my thoughts towards those distant days at school? Or it might be that my old classmates in the year of the 1963 Leaving Certificate remain a close knit group via twice annual luncheons and the modern miracle of email.

Time has proven that we were an eclectic bunch. No names, no pack drill. To the best of my knowledge, no one has been to jail (yet), but the range of talents and vocations is extraordinary. Maybe others have the same experience and it's normal. We were all baby boomers and the sons of returned servicemen and women who went through the depression and passed on their lessons of life to us.

Our numbers include:
The first streaker at Twickenham. I can tell the little known story later. Attachment 472999 Attachment 473000 This bloke is now a seriously conservative arbitrageur.

A well known author and political editor for a national publication.

One of NSW's best known Elvis impersonators. Oops sorry, tribute artist. Oh yes, and a full time chartered accountant.

A dot com squillionaire who lived in Silicon Valley and boasted that he competed with another bloke for bottom of the class at school. Worked in IT before 1970. In 2001, he cancelled his 11 September 2001 flight UA 93 flight to San Francisco delaying it one day only to have that flight grounded. The plane was hijacked on 9/11 and crashed in Pennsylvania.

An activist who rode on the Freedom Bus to Walgett and spent a lifetime working for indigenous people.

Australia's leading vexillologists, i.e. he study of flags. He went on to spend a lifetime manufacturing them.

Another who turned his hobby into a business making archery equipment

A Sicilian who is suspected of being "connected".

A friend who established a major private Australian school for expats in South East Asia.

I've often wondered if this is only a sample of a very normal group of young men from that era.

mick