"I don't know how we met each other. I don't know who got along with whom first. All I can remember is all of us together "... always." — Author unknown

FOLLOWING IS PART two of my wife's return to her hometown to join her high school classmates in celebrating their 50th anniversary class reunion.

Our overnight stopover in Ely, Nev., was a welcome respite for my wife, Mary, and me, and gave us an opportunity to freshen up before completing the last leg of our journey.

Shortly before dawn, we drove down the mountain onto the desert expanse where weathered buildings and sagebrush and other indigenous plants disrupted the otherwise desolate landscape.

Tiny yellow flowering bushes added color to a monochromatic backdrop and stretched for miles on both sides of the highway. It was as though they'd been planted there intentionally to direct us to Pioche — like the yellow brick road to Oz.

The world about us seemed void of life except for a family of deer that appeared out of nowhere and the few cars that passed us heading north.

We arrived in Pioche ahead of schedule and registered at the lone hotel built over a saloon/gambling parlor — an archetypal western structure from Pioche's colorful past.

Our room faced the street, and from that vantage we could see the lot where Mary's parents' dry cleaning establishment once stood. Now it's a vacant

Since Mary's class reunion was planned in conjunction with the school's 100th anniversary celebration, the program opened with a welcoming assembly in the school gym followed by a centennial parade along main street in the neighboring town of Panaca where the high school is located.

Former students, ranging from the most recent graduates to those in their nineties, proudly paraded by as all the town's residents turned out to cheer them on.

We attended a football game later in the evening between the hometown's Lincoln County Lynx team and a rival high school. By halftime, Mary had not seen any of her classmates.

That wasn't surprising since trying to ferret them out in a crowd of hundreds of spectators seemed virtually impossible. It didn't matter. Everyone was expected to be at the brunch at Ann Henderson's "old homestead" in Pioche the next morning.

Ann, a lifelong friend of Mary's, lived across from where Mary's parents' laundry once stood. Ann moved away but still owns that house which she uses as a summer retreat.

My wife and I were planning to leave before the second half of the game when who but Glen Green, her year's student body president, called on her phone.

In short order, the group got together and revived their friendships while the football game — which the Lynx eventually won — was all but forgotten.

The brunch the next morning was an epicurean delight with a wide assortment of meats and pastries and everything in between. All but one or two of the guests showed up, most with their spouses and significant others, to dine on Ann's gourmet offerings and to exchange stories of the "detached" 50 years.

Folks talked about going away to college or to seek employment. Many became educators while others found work in the corporate field. And there were several who married early and devoted their lives to raising families.

Several, like my wife, established homes in the Bay Area. But the big surprise was Charles Christian, who lives and teaches in Alaska and flew in with his family expressly to attend the reunion.

But not everyone opted to move away entirely. Like Ann Henderson, Gary Reese, who is mayor pro tem of Las Vegas, maintains a vacation home in Panaca.

In the late afternoon, the school sponsored an outdoor all-alumni dinner that Mary and her classmates attended. It provided them one last opportunity to share their experiences of the past couple of days and to unreservedly tell each other of their undying love for each other despite the passage of time.

There were hugs and tears and the exchange of e-mail addresses and promises to keep in touch "... and then we all went our separate ways.

As a self-appointed honorary member of the Lincoln County High School class of '59, I'm already looking forward to my wife's next class reunion "... and even mine!

Eizo Kobayashi is a Concord resident and a member of the Concord Senior Citizens Club. Reach him at columns@bayareanewsgroup.com.