Have you ever sat straight up in bed in the early hours of the morning, or been riding your bike around a big lake, or been waiting for a bus, when, all of a sudden, you wondered, "Hey, I wonder however X is these days? I haven't seen him in a coon's age; he must be getting on in years; I hope he's feeling OK." I never used to have these questions suddenly burst upon my consciousness, but I'm now 66, and whenever I have them, and they're coming to me more frequently now than they did about thirty years ago, I take them very seriously, want to make sure my old and dear friends are still chugging along.

Shortly before this past Christmas, I starting wondering how Mr. Ladd Srch was faring. He was a fellow-bass in the Nevada Community Choir in the mid-1990s, when Wes Morton was our energetic and exalted leader. Ladd, thin as a wafer and not particularly tall, had a low, low, low bass voice, making Jerome Hines, the bass of New York's Metropolitan Opera, sound like a castrato by contrast. When the choir sang the tuneful ditty "Christmas in a Small Town," which Ladd and I thought particularly appropriate to Nevada, Ladd and I pretty much appropriated it as "our song." And when either of us ran across the other on the sidewalk, he would break into that song, puzzling any passersby.

Thus, I thought of Ladd when the holiday hove in sight this past December. I hadn't been able to make it, physically, for the last few Nevada Christmas Choir performances, and I wondered if Ladd had performed, where I had missed. His daughter Theresa, who had performed as percussionist for a few performances, had married and moved with her husband to the West Coast, so I couldn't very well phone her for information on her Dad.

As it happened, one noontime, when Ginny and I were having lunch at China One Buffet, suddenly I heard the words, in rolling bass, "Chucckk Naaashh . . ." I thought it was the voice of God sending me a message from on high! Before I could get into a cold sweat, however, I turned around … and met the charmingly familiar faces of Mr. and Mrs. Ladd Srch at a neighboring table. Seeing them so hale and hearty made my day.

Sometime in January, I also began worrying about Dr. Inez Byer, my long-time friend and colleague from Cottey. When the new Academic Building was completed, she and I became office-mates, with two of the offices on the third floor. She had retired a couple of years before I did, but where was she now? Was she feeling OK? How was her health? A Christian Scientist, she never complained about her health, or about anything else, for that matter. Could she have moved in with her daughter in Kansas City? Saint Louis? Could she be sick and left no one the wiser? Could she be in a hospital, and, if so, which one? I'd always valued Inez's spirit, her sense of humor, her spunkiness. I didn't know anyone who didn't.

Well, I know her whereabouts now. Just a few short weeks ago, Ginny and I met, by prior arrangement, with Inez, and George and Helen Washburn, the last two in town for a visit with Mitch and Jan Magruder. The Washburns, Nashes, and Inez Byer all had a leisurely lunch one day at Greenfield's. In all our five-way conversation, there was one exchange that showed me that this woman who answered to the name Inez was no imposter. Someone was speaking about the wonderful Friday afternoon parties that Inez used to hold for the Cottey faculty, at her house on South Washington. Was she, asked one of us, going to have any more parties late this spring of 2006. (I hope she'll forgive me for broadcasting this.)

Inez, in a voice loud and perfectly clear, said, "Well, maybe; but, first, I'd better get my bed fixed!"

Inez was a professor beloved by all her students, and for good reasons. Not a publishing scholar or administrator, she was a teacher first and foremost. For one thing, she enjoyed teaching; you could hear it clearly in her bubbly voice. She didn't believe that a teacher had to be boring-rigorous, no-nonsense to be good. On sunny days, in the spring, she used to take her classes outside and teach them there, with herself in the middle, and the small band of "Cottey girls" (as they used to be called, prior to being called "women") in a half-circle around her. Seeing her this way, I often thought I must be immured in an English novel, "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," for example.

A few months ago, I began to wonder how Effie Volkland was. I used to see her at various places around town, sometimes, as I remember, at the Little Alley Theater, where her grandson Dietrich was rehearsing in a play. But I hadn't seen her in I didn't remember how long. Then, a couple of months ago, I heard from a woman who was in the same computer class I was taking at the building that used to be the State Hospital, that Effie's health was very poor and deteriorating.

When she died, Ginny and I went to the viewing of the body, at Evergreen Memorial Chapel. I didn't want to view the body, because, in my opinion, bodies in that condition are seldom the way you remember them in life. I was thankful, however, to get reacquainted with her grandson Dietrich Volkland and Dietrich's lovely wife Leigh Mowry. How odd what we remember! I recalled that the last time I had talked with Dietrich, we were in the basement of Cottey, nearing the bookstore. Earlier in the year, he had told me that he and some of his friends were going to see the musical group Chicago, and now he told me that his trip had been great, and the band had been super-great.

Dietrich and Leigh and their youngsters live in Alisoviejo, Calif. I'm sure Leigh's mother, Mrs. Cheryl Mowry, will be happy to give you their street address if you phone her. It was great to meet up again with Dietrich and Leigh, even if under unfortunate circumstances. Like most oldsters my age, I don't really recognize that I'm at an age when, a couple of centuries ago, I would long since have been dead. Frankly, I don't even feel particularly old. But, looking around me, I do notice that once-young friends‚ and acquaintances‚ hair is mighty gray these days.

Do we value our friends more and more as we get older because we know they and ourselves won't be around much longer?

Excuse me, that's a dumb question, isn't it?