Belated proof that we're all still here.

It was wintertime during the 1972-73 school year, when I was a 7th grader at Floyd Central Junior High. Our basketball coach was Joe Kerstiens, who also taught English.

Joe didn’t teach for too long, soon moving on to other things. In the years that followed, I’d cross his path here and there, as in 1984, when I was working at the old Scoreboard Liquors and he was a sportswriter at the Tribune. All told, there were times when I’d see Joe regularly, and other times when it would be months or even years between sightings. At some point during the 1980’s, he took a job working for the Doctors Stemm at their dental office on Spring Street, remaining there to the present day.

In 2003, the Confidentials moved into the big old house right next door to the Stemm place, across a shared driveway. These days, my acquaintance with Joe somewhat resembles Tim Allen’s with Wilson on Home Improvement, albeit it without the fence.

Once upon a time during the Nixon Administration, while coaching our 7th grade team, Joe convened the players for an early Saturday morning practice. Greg Purvis was missing. Coach K may or may not have been having a good day, because he looked around the gym for the absent player, growled, and scandalized us with a profanity.

“Where the hell is Purvis?," Joe asked. "Is he dead?”

For reasons unknown to an adolescent mind, this became the signature Kerstiens moment, repeated among the former players quite often as the years passed by.

Recently Greg Purvis, who doubles as a real-life friend as well as playing one on Facebook, took to social media and made a comment on one of my posts. The following transpired.