From the journal of Kevin Savacier, age 37
April 20, 1990
I got a letter from my friend from Cole, Bill Kazan, the other day, and he said he and Karen are planning to move, with their six children, to New Orleans! This is exciting news to me. I've enjoyed every minute of living here, since graduating from Tulane, and look forward to having a big reunion with them, and showing them around. Funny thing about Bill and Karen--they sure had their share of fun, but after they got married and all those children started popping out, one after another, all that responsibility kicked in, and I'll be surprised if I, a bachelor, can even get them out of the house long enough to go have dinner somewhere!
I'm curious as to why they're relocating here, and where Bill and Karen have worked and all, but I'm sure we'll catch up at some point.
After I read that letter, I got to thinking about all those crazy things that happened in so short a period of time back in the early 1970s. My gang and I were just kids back then, and laughed off so many of the antics of the old folks. Looking back on it, though, it couldn't have been so funny to them, and it's no wonder that when I go back to Cole from time to time, then old place just isn't what is used to be. I recognize more names in the cemetery than I do in the newspaper these days, and it depresses me. I can count on one hand the number of my contemporaries who still live there; we've all just sort of lost track of each other. I'm sure Bill and Karen will bring me up to date, but there's got to be a good reason why they, too, left the place.
I've had a series of teaching jobs in both the public and parochial schools in New Orleans over the years. When people ask me how on earth I learned "values" growing up in Cole, after I tell them some of the salacious stories from the seventies, my reply is that it is not so much of what went on and was talked about, so much as it was what did not go on. I mean, we did have a few good teachers and preachers who tried to keep things on an even keel, but they certainly couldn't legislate morals. My folks didn't allow me to go out much, but this didn't leave any emotional scars, and, given life in New Orleans, I'll always be thankful for their concern and direction. Friends with no compass or good moral upbringing ruined themselves early; some have even already lost their earthly lives.
If I hadn't had such good teachers, I wouldn't have lasted as long as I have, trying to teach English and History to today's kids.
My phone's ringing now.
April 21, 1990
Well, things haven't changed much with Bill! He and Karen are still doing just fine, but he's ready for a break from those kids! We're scheduled to go to a pub tonight, a bar I doubt seriously Karen will track him down in. In fact, after we leave the pub, if Bill's the same Bill I remember him as from twenty years ago, the party won't be over yet.
THE END
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