Giving thanks to old friends

This is one of my favourite college days photographs. It was taken 19 years ago at LA Pierce College and shows myself and nine fellow students from England's Barnsley College who studied at the California institution for a semester.

I came across it today. It was one of the images I scanned from an old negative. For an hour or so I worked my way through a dozen negatives, turning them into digital files. I was doing this both for prosperity and to make it easier to save them in places where they will, hopefully, never be lost.

So it was saving history in a way, although more a personal history than anything of historic value to the wider world. But important to me.

These old pictures remind me of the younger version of myself, and of those I shared those far-flung days with. We were a tight-knit group. We studied at Barnsley College and so knew one another from classes there and from socialising. When we were chosen as the group of ten to pioneer a link-up with the Los Angeles college, we became closer still. Our lodgings were two adjacent apartments at a nearby university complex, so in a way it was our own mini-fraternity set-up, or as close as ten UK students would ever get to one.

This picture was taken on the football field at the college, and we are smiling and relaxed. That's what I like most. It instantly brings back emotions and feelings from that day, and from those months under the California sun.

I believe I may have said this before, but when I gaze upon these pictures I am overcome by a desire to be able to step into them and live the moment again. Or to be a casual observer walking up to the group to meet them.

Would it be that time could twist or rabbit-hole in such a way to make that possible. A flight of fancy, I know.

I look upon the younger me, and the younger others, and I consider myself fortunate to have experienced those moments.

Time moves quickly and it can be all too easy to forget to stop and appreciate what we have here and now. Then, one day, we end up looking at pictures that are 19 years old and only then truly appreciate those friendships and experiences. Life is, indeed, what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.

As I look at my college friends I remember Beryl, who is no longer here, and I honour her endearing friendship. To the others, I wish them well wherever they are.

Take the time today to look around at all that you are doing, and all the friends in your life and give thanks. For before you know it they will be fondly recalled images in the scrapbook of your life.