The Nostalgia Channel

Last night I was given the chance to wax nostalgic in public for the first time in ages. The Peace Corps recruiting office in SF asked me and another Thailand "returned volunteer" (RPCV) as we are affectionately called, to give an informal presentation at Lucie Stern center in Palo Alto. I brought some of my favorite people slides, and after a brief intro by the recruiter, I showed about 30 of them, telling a little about the people in the photos and using that as a launching pad to giving some more info about Thailand and Peace Corps service. The reception was not the "ooh, aah" I got the time I showed them to the local RPCV group, but at least they didn't start to lose interest before my time was up. It was close, though.

After my slide show, Colin, the other RPCV, talked about the Peace Corps training and experience in more depth. We only had half a dozen attendees, so he stayed in his chair and just had people gather round. Not bad for a lawyer. Very interesting point - Colin had much more thorough language training, including a 3-month home stay and assignment to a tiny village in the middle of nowhere, and he was there 10 years later than me, but he's lost all his reading and most of his speaking skills.

Maybe I'm living in the past too much. Probably am.

I wasn't going to add to the noise, but

pyrzqxgl linked to this outstanding article on Scotty's life and passing, which had me wiping teardrops off the keyboard.