14 Sept 2026
Season 2 Episode 11 - Jim Browning
Here we are just a few weeks away from the high school class Reunion that started all this off.
For those of you who are new to the podcast, we started last year as a way to catch up with some old friends and see where life had taken them over the past 50 years.
Along the way, we’ve reached into almost every corner of the class of ’76, or as they said in the Breakfast Club movie, we’ve talked to the rebel, the princess, the outcast, the brainiac,and the jock.
And we’ve gone beyond that, we’ve talked to the doctor, the teacher, the artisan, the philosopher, the creative, the movie stunt woman, the football coach, the businessman, the English teacher, and more.
And guess what? We’re going to get every one of those people together in the same room at the same time.
Oh my, is that a good idea?
For some, that will be a trip. For others, that seems like deathby a thousand lashes. I get it. There are going to be some people there you aren’t excited about seeing.
Guess what, me too.
High school was a formative time, and fortunately (and also unfortunately) we formed a lot of things during those years, some of which we may have spent thousands of dollars on in therapy to get rid of.
But on the other hand, look how much we have grown. And it’s not only you and me who have grown, most everyone else around us in the class has grown to one extent or another. At the very least, after 50 years, none of us are the same people we were when we were 18 years old.
Change is hard, and for the past 50 years we have gone through many changes, some good and some not so good.
But we’ve come to that point in life where we have to decide if we are going to be bound by the past or if we are going to use the past as a foundation for the future.
Out guest on this episode of the podcast is a great example. I’ve known him since were in elementary school at Mohawk back in the 1960s. We moved up to North junior high together and were in the Viking Band, him playing tenor sax and me playing alto, so we were always in the same sectional rehearsals and logged lots of after school hours learning how to play together as a band. And of course, we moved on up to high school and I would be lying if I said it was all rosy. There were times we disagreed. There were times that weavoided each other in the halls over something that was said. There were other times when we sat and pondered what life would be like after graduation. We knew our differences were there, but we shared so much more.
So fast forward 50 years and guess what, we’re still different. And we still have our differences.
He’s a woke California liberal living in Tahoe and I’m a stogy old conservative living in Texas. He was surprised to learn I had never smoked pot, I was surprised he was a successful businessman.
So here we are. Two extremely different guys. Bound together by a common experience that shows we have more in common than we do apart.
So, grab a cup of coffee or your favorite beverage and sit back for a far ranging discussion of life, human sexuality, and never knowing what life is going to bring when you make a phonecall . . .
