Whoa! That Class Of '68!

I was fortunate to go to the American School in Japan (you can take a tour here), which was a pretty elite place -- there were 104 in my graduating class; 103 went to college. We were the children of ambassadors, diplomats, business leaders, missionaries ... and then there was me, scrawny 17 year-old me.

I just caught up with some of my classmates via the quarterly school magazine, Ambassador. Wow.

Annie Sung Bernstein lives in Honolulu, HI, where she teches tai chi and qi gong and keeps the creative juices flowing through the practice of Chinese calligraphy.

Kathy Chih has finished her tour of duty in Kuwait and has returned to San Diego. She can't believe that she survived the 140 degree heat and sand in Kuwait, but is proud to say she served. [Thank you for your service!]

Steve MacDonald remains in northern Spain, enjoying the great food, wine and European trips. He and his wife recently signed off on final drawings for their main retirement home in the Philippines.

Sherrie Shibata Russell Miline recently won the US Fish and Wildlife Service federal duck stamp contest [shades of Fargo!] with her painting of a Ross' goose. Her work, on the right, was chosen from among 232 entries.

Wise Young and his work as stem cell researcher and medical activist were featured in the December 2005 issue of Esquire.

And my best friend, Peter Tsukahira, continues to lead Kehilat HaCarmel (Carmel Assembly), an evangelical, charismatic church near the peak of Mt. Carmel in Israel. That's him, with his wife Rita. He prayed for 20 years for my salvation, and broke down in tears in a post office in Haifa when my letter telling him I had accepted Christ arrived.

I would, quite literally, be lost without him.

As time goes by, a school and schoolmates that I took for granted despite my parents' signficant financial sacrifice to pay my tuition become more cherished and more important to me.