Big shots

An aircraft captain of JAL, professor cum conductor of an orchestra, chief editorial of the largest economic newspaper, director and member of the board of a major ship manufacturing company, CEO of an architectural firm operating both in Los Angels and Japan, secretariat and executive committee of Japanese Trade Union Confederation (連合). Those are titles that turned out to be possessed by my classmates.
Our elementary school was a quite ordinary public school where anyone including kids from poorest families attended. It had never produced students who entered any of good high schools (national or private). But very strangely and without any reason, there happened to be many kids in our class smart enough to pass most difficult entrance examinations. Some of the smart classmates went on to the public high school of our school district for economic reasons. In spite of this low educational environment they kept to be smart as well and passed the most difficult university of all; Tokyo University. And now they, regardless of their high-schools, have come to possess the titles above. I found, while talking in the class reunion, we felt somehow very happy to know our classmates, who we studied with, played with, did silly things with or competed with in a friendly rivalry, have become big shots.
We spent our school days together and exert and receive influence each other in any form whether it is good or bad. As a result we are here now playing our own part of our lives. The titles are just a name. But behind the titles we feel their struggles, sadness, setbacks,... that they have overcome and that we have had in common in our respective ways. Some may not have been lucky enough to achieve a mundane success but what we all had in common was empathetic feeling that we all managed to hack our ways in life.
We may have reached an age that allow us to think that all things are just a matter of luck. I could be a pilot. I could be a chief editorial... It may be just a piece of luck away. It is just a whim of Lady Luck. They could be a freelance consultant, writing on a blog about class reunion ^^;