‘Jimmy Dunne Says’

This past weekend, I flew to La Grange, Illinois, for my high school class reunion. My hometown suburb outside Chicago.

Just in time for the autumn trees, blanketing over so many of our hometown’s picturesque streets—on just a perfect weekend. So many trees had started to turn—evolving into a banquet of colors.

Back to my class reunion …

I’m not fessing up which one it was. Let’s just say on the day we graduated, Tom Brady, Elon Musk and Beyonce weren’t even born yet.

Our high school was a huge public high school smack in the heart of town. LTHS. Absolutely spectacular. Six-thousand kids in our school back in those days. A whopping 1,520 in my graduating class.

For that two-night class reunion, I had no expectations. I figured I’d run into a bunch of old high school buddies and yuck it up. We sure did that—and I couldn’t have possibly loved it more.

———–

But something else happened. Something unexpected.

It happened every single time I met with one of my fantastic classmates.

All I had to do was look in their eyes.

They’d share some moment we had a lifetime ago.

I ran into a fantastic guy, Dave Allen, a long-distance runner in high school. He’s a pediatric doctor, and a great dad and father—living in Wisconsin.

He reminded me how I’d show up unannounced as Santa every year at their family’s Christmas Eve party to a house full of relatives—and told me how it meant the world to his parents.

Dave took me there to his childhood home—sitting in that chair by their big tree in my first second-hand Santa suit.

An old buddy pulled me back to how we’d announce sophomore basketball games for WLTL radio—where we’d completely make up a different game than the basketball game that was actually going on.

We were all receptors for each other. Pulling us back in time.

To who we were. What we dreamed. Who we loved. What we were afraid of. The raw feelings of those forgotten times.

———–

Here’s the other thing.

We didn’t talk about our jobs. Or even our kids or spouses.

Nobody, nobody cared about the size of somebody’s wallet, or their car, or the size of their house.

We talked about then. That’s what we shared. That’s what bonded us forever.

We didn’t want those two nights to end.

———–

With a late Sunday afternoon flight, I spent the morning by myself, just driving around the streets blanketed by those October trees—and taking a wandering walk through our town’s woods.

I realized those trees reminded me a lot of my amazing classmates.

Some trees were still so green. So healthy. Still drinking in the sun, dancing in the wind.

Ones just stepping into their autumn days. Just announcing their lovely new colors. A lovely collage of half-green—and unique colors anticipating its days ahead.

And many trees already deep in stunning colors. Their leaves were getting crisp and gracefully falling, with the wind challenging their tired limbs. Their leaves covered the ground.

Some unfortunate trees had already lost all their leaves. Were already barren.

———–

Deep beneath its worn bark, every tree’s harbored rings told its unique story, unique journey.

The story of dry years, of growth, of unexpected fires, of times of abundance.

That’s what we all shared.

We each had our own rings, our own journeys, rich with layers we never could have imagined.

For some, the winds of fate were kind and generous to the journey. For some, you sensed layers of a pain and sadness.

Rings of the trees.

———–

Walking through those woods, I was thinking about how trees communicate with each other through their roots. Deep underground, how they exchange life-giving nutrients—and information.

Sharing. Giving. It’s how they survive.

We did that for each other in those amazingly important four years.

We lifted each other up. We cheered each other on. We were all connected through that magical place, that moment in our lives.

Days when we felt, and tried, and explored so many things for the first time, experimenting with the recipe of what would make us us.

Maybe we all came away from that reunion rekindling a confidence to step just a bit further onto a limb we had forgotten we even had.

This weekend, those trees humbled me. Inspired me. Transported me.

Alone, in the absolute quiet of those woods, I gave thanks to the wonder.

To the absolute wonder of it all.

Jimmy Dunne is a modern-day Renaissance Man; a hit songwriter (28 million hit records), screenwriter/producer of hit television series, award-winning author, an entrepreneur—and a Palisadian “Citizen of the Year.” You can reach him at j@jimmydunne.com or jimmydunne.substack.com.