Flashback

In the first quarter of my sophomore year at college, my cluster of friends discovered that we all had classes at University Hall, Kresge or Harris at either 9 or 10 am, which meant that at 9:50 am, we had time for a great 10-minute rendezous/smoking break/pow-wow (except that none of us actually smoked) before dragging our feet indoors for the next class. Friends would bring friends, and before long we had a regular conference of about ten people who loosely knew each other, huddled at a bench opposite the Rock. As the weather got grayer and jackets got heavier, we still met every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for a quick exhalation of conversation, twitching from toe to toe to keep the blood circulating, before the gradual retreat of bundled bodies into the buildings around us signalled that our time was up.

Time was short, then; it seems even shorter, now.