I drove into the city tonight to pickup my Mom. We went to a wake tonight, a wake that I felt I needed to go to.

My scoutmaster had died. His wife was my Den Mother in Cub Scouts. He was the scoutmaster of my Troop. Scouting was a big thing for me growing up. It carried into my teens and later. His family has been deeply involved in scouting ever since. I just needed to go - both the support my mom who is friends with the wife, but for me as well.

Two vignettes during the evening stand out.

The first was meeting some of my scout mates. These are people I haven't seen for 25-30 years. It was the first time in my life where I am standing in front of a man and I can barely see the boy I knew and camped with 30 years ago. The years reel and you try to figure out how a pudgy kid you once knew is now a successful, thin, dentist.

The second was meeting the parents of a guy that I played with for years when I was in grade school. I played every day. During the summer, it was baseball, baseball, baseball. We played everything - full fledged games over at Steinmetz, maybe a game of fast pitch in front of our houses, maybe running bases in the alley.

I haven't seen these people in 30 years. Yet, the experience was almost as if I was back 30 years ago. It's one thing to see a kid all grown-up. It's another to see the parents of the kid. The parents, to you back then, were older and didn't change. And here they are in front of you. Sure they're both a bit grayer, and may not move as fast, but it's the same faces, the same voices, the same smiles, the same glint in their eyes.

And that one meeting tonight is what I bring home with me. That quick connection to the past. The realization that the parents were pretty damn cool then and they're cool now.