I've been to a couple of class reunions this year - one school where I spent all but the last three semesters of my education and the other school from which I graduated. Lots of the old classmates are on Facebook. And, through the "surveys" they've done, I've discovered all are conservative Republicans. But, I'm a liberal Democrat.

I wonder what made us turn out so differently? We grew up in the same small town and had the same teachers. Our parents weren't that much different - most were born in the 1920s and early 1930s. Some lived in town; some lived on farms. Some of us were "oil field trash",some of us were children of merchants and some of us were the bosses' children. Why did we end up with so divergent political beliefs and systems?

Are beliefs set by the time we're eight or nine? Are we hardwired for one thing and not another?

Growing up in Oklahoma in the 1950s and 1960s was almost like Mayberry. No one locked their doors. People left the keys in the car ignition. The sidewalks were rolled up at 7:00 and kids played hide and seek until "dark thirty".

Until I went to the 40th class reunions, I had not thought about my old classmates and their political or religious belief systems. But, now I do. We're all over the United States - some in New York, some in Tennessee, California, even Texas and Oklahoma. Now, I wonder what causes people to be one political party over another. I wonder why some are moderates, some are liberals, and some conservative. It's probably an age old question, like which came first - the chicken or the egg. Or maybe it's a question of nature against nurture.

I'll not try to analyze it. Because it just is. But, I will, for a while, wonder why.