I finally got a chance to watch the finale of The Office tonight. When it first was broadcast, a lot of folks were posting a quote from Ed Helms about the good ole days. Upon seeing the scene, I can understand why folks would gravitate towards the good ole days.

However, I got stuck on the sentiment about pals and thinking of pals.

I miss many of my pals.

I had a chance to catch up with one of them today. My friend Colleen was back in the state today. She lives in San Francisco where she works as an advocate for the homeless. She was supposed to be in my high school graduating class at Hackett, but her parents moved from Kalamazoo to Grand Haven after the 1st semester of our freshman year. It was hard to believe that it’s been over 20 years since we had scene each other. It was good to catch up and trade memories about Mrs. Reece’s english class and about Bro. Chris’ religion class. She was the first person to introduce me to the Beatles and I have missed her.

Yes, I miss many of my pals. I miss my pals from high school. I miss my pals from WMU. I miss my pals from HRPO. I miss my pals from the Jaycees.

I sit here tonight, typing this during some very exciting weather, and my thoughts are full of all of the pals that I miss.

The month of May has been a rough month and I have a feeling that over the course of the next few weeks I’ll think back to other important people in my life and realize that I’m going to miss them very much too.

“I just wish there was a way to know you were in the good ole days before you left them.”

Yes … yes I do.