Today's song is More Love by Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, released in 1967.

My high school senior prom was on June 7, 1968. I went with my girlfriend along with one of my best friend's, Fred Gellman and his girlfriend. All four of us drove in the 1967 Red VW my mother owned.

The prom dance was held at The Chateau Royale on west Chicago Avenue in downtown Chicago. I remember I wore a turtle-neck under my Tuxedo and it being a hot night, I was dying from it. Another of my best friend's, Angel Rodriguez also wore a turtle-neck under his Tuxedo and he too was uncomfortable in his. I think that was the last time I ever wore a turtle-neck.

After the dance, all four of us went to Chicago's London House to eat. At the London House we sat directly in front of Ramsey Lewis' Band and listened to the music of the night. Many of our classmates were also there. I remember my best friend Bill Artus coming in talking about how he and his date crashed the dinner party reservations by Anna Kong's entourage attending the Spanky and Our Gang band gathering at another location. Why didn't we think of that?

We all got home after midnight and then all four of us met up again very early in the morning to drive to the Indiana Dunes State Park for the day. I remember we all had a great time that day.

It was a time of new adventures as we ended our high school years that June. That was the last summer of my innocence, in more ways than one. I look back on it with warm and loving memories.

In this past week or so, I have received many emails from my former high school classmates, some of whom I hadn't emailed with previously. We connect across the decades with a common thread of having gone to a good high school and remembering the turbulent years of the 1960's. I always enjoy hearing from my friends and classmates, those messages refresh the days of yesteryear when we were all so young.

I'm planning a trip to Chicago in July. My main reason to go is to see my grandson after he is born, my daughter is due to deliver him on June 18th. I will also try to see as many of my friends and classmates as I can to informally celebrate the 40th anniversary of our graduation.

A relative of mine sent me the following beautiful story. As many readers of this web site already know, it underscores my philosphy too. I republish the story here for all my family and friends. It applies to those that once were in frequent contact with me and to those that still are. Sometimes you can reach out to others and sometimes they reach back to you. Even if they do not reach back, you can keep on reaching...

One day a teacher asked her students to list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name.

Then she told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down.

It took the remainder of the class period to finish their assignment, and as the students left the room, each one handed in the papers.

That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said about that individual.

On Monday she gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. "Really?" she heard whispered. "I never knew that I meant anything to anyone!" and, "I didn't know others liked me so much," were most of the comments.

No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. She never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn't matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. The students were happy with themselves and one another. That group of students moved on.

Several years later, one of the students was killed in VietNam and his teacher attended the funeral of that special student. She had never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before. He looked so handsome, so mature.

The church was packed with his friends. One by one those who loved him took a last walk by the coffin. The teacher was the last one to bless the coffin.

As she stood there, one of the soldiers who acted as pallbearer came up to her "Were you Mark's math teacher?" he asked. She nodded: "yes." Then he said: "Mark talked about you a lot."

After the funeral, most of Mark's former classmates went together to a luncheon. Mark's mother and father were there, obviously waiting to speak with his teacher.

"We want to show you something," his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket "They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it."

Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times. The teacher knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which she had listed all the good things each of Mark's classmates had said about him.

"Thank you so much for doing that," Mark's mother said. "As you can see, Mark treasured it."

All of Mark's former classmates started to gather around. Charlie smiled rather sheepishly and said, "I still have my list. It's in the top drawer of my desk at home."

Chuck's wife said, "Chuck asked me to put his in our wedding album."

"I have mine too," Marilyn said. "It's in my diary"

Then Vicki, another classmate, reached into her pocketbook, took out her wallet and showed her worn and frazzled list to the group. "I carry this with me at all times," Vicki said and without batting an eyelash, she continued: "I think we all saved our lists"

That's when the teacher finally sat down and cried. She cried for Mark and for all his friends who would never see him again.

The density of people in society is so thick that we forget that life will end one day. And we don't know when that one day will be.

So please, tell the people you love and care for, that they are special and important. Tell them, before it is too late.

And One Way To Accomplish This Is: Forward this message on. If you do not send it, you will have, once again passed up the wonderful opportunity to do something nice and beautiful.

If you've received this, it is because someone cares for you and it means there is probably at least someone for whom you care.

If you're "too busy" to take those few minutes right now to forward this message on, would this be the VERY first time you didn't do that little thing that would make a difference in your relationships?

The more people that you send this to, the better you'll be at reaching out to those you care about.

Remember, you reap what you sow. What you put into the lives of others comes back into your own.

My Newbound, Inc., partner Marc and I are moving our new business along. New consulting and software development contracts have been signed and we're working on growing the company further. We hope to have some demos up on the company's site in the near future.

My business card is shown below. It incorporates my design elements of the sunset and the futuristic logo. Marc wanted the purple cast for a regal look.

Bobby Kennedy's ideas live on 40 years after his death on June 6, 1968.

Sherry I went to see my friend, Tammy, play in her Firefly band, at the Valley View Casino last Thursday night. I will see her play there again later this month.

Next week's already sold out Apple Worldwide Developers Conference is expected to be very important. I await the new announcements by CEO Steve Jobs at the Keynote Speech on Monday. :-)

JRuby is cool and I am looking into it. I found a couple more good articles on Ruby: Ruby for the Java world; and, Ruby/Ruby on Rails Tutorials.

If you want to share goals publicly, 43 Things is a place to do that.

BaseCamp is an online project management solution.

Found on the web links for June 6, 2008

Don