The Berlin Local Alumni Association gathered two weeks ago. It is a diverse and modest body with diminishing returns for there is no longer a Berlin Local High School. It eroded in 1969 when the Berlin Heights & Milan communities merged their schools to eventually become Edison Local Schools.

We came together not so much to reunite but to celebrate our perseverance. For the most part it appears our health is good, it’s our age that is bad. We celebrate the memory of those who have gone to the higher field but we are trying to “arrange our lives so that we don’t even have to be present.”

How do we measure that we are no longer baby boomers? Sadly, it’s not by the size of our 401K or how many cars fir in the garage or the behavior of our children and grandchildren. More importantly it may be if we are quick with a joke, can remember one another or recall who scored a winning touchdown.

It has been said that “life is nothing but high school writ large.” Everything we did or who we were in high school is most likely what we do or became the rest of our lives. Joy and sadness, hypocrisy and integrity, cheerleaders and bystanders. Everything changes and nothing changes.

What has this to do with family and farm and today? Everything. One small sidestep and all could be different.

Had I been missing something and not paying attention or was nothing going on that I thought significant. Looking back can of course be dangerous and enlightening. George Bernard Shaw has said “The longer I live the more I see I am never wrong and all the pains I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time.” Oh how righteous he would be if he was correct. How wrong he was.

There was an account of a Texas man in the Plain Dealer two weeks ago. His life was to shortened by health issues and he came to grips with a major regret: being too focused upon himself and not giving enough to others. He decided to volunteer in every state to raise awareness that “serving” was far more important that dying. He is doing it and he wakes up happy. His life is anew.

I am grateful that our grandchildren, Payton, Henry, Beatrice, Tucker & Arra have parents who are driven to instill in them that giving back is the highest of virtues. It is a subtle process that must constantly battle the trapping of an accumulating culture. But it will work; “stuff” does not count.

A couple years ago Beatrice asked me “Is your day happy, Poppy Bill?” I was taken back for that gentle thought seemed deeply sensitive for one so young. That is not innate. That is learned. A brief moment that is cause for great hope.

Likewise daughter Adrianne has been encouraging me to jaunt “back to the future” to unravel relationships with mother and father and all family folks that we really don’t know like we should. Who will know how they looked at life. We all need an assignment to know where we have been and where we are heading.

“Hope and pray and always hustle,” our uncle often encouraged. Uncertainties abound and surround, yet tranquility is attainable.

Here’s what the farm calendar looks like. For the most part crops look positive. Only a small bit of frost. Peaches are as bountiful as they have been for 8-10 years with a now easily accessible pick your own block.

JUNE 17 First Sweet Cherries

JUNE 27 – Tart Cherries

JUNE 23 – Red Raspberries

JULY 7-11 – First Peaches

AUG. 12 – First Apples (Zestar/Gala)

AUG. 12-20 – Red Haven Peaches

AUG. 26-30 – White Peaches/Nectarines

SEPT 4 – Cider

SEPT. 6-OCT. 4 – Plums

SEPT. 13-NOV. 4 – Pears

SEPT. 10 – Honeycrisp & Crimson Crisp

SEPT. 17 – Pumpkins & Gourds

OCT. 15 – Evercrisp

OCT. 29 – Pink Lady, Goldrush. Fuji