June is the 50th anniversary of my graduation from Midwood High School in Brooklyn. I’ve been getting emails from the alumni association about the reunion, which it says is our final reunion — I guess they think we’ll all croak before the 60th. Not that I think I’ll fly east for the 50th. But, anyway, that’s not the point.

One of the emails included a list of people from our class who died. A grim list. I read the list and came to Howard King. He is dead.

Howard was the most handsome, the coolest of our friends. He was brilliant and a good athlete and, I’ll never forget this, he was the best dancer. I always wanted to be Howie instead of Lowell.

Over the years, my friends and I wondered what happened to Howie. He was one of us. We went to PS 193 together and Hudde Junior High and Midwood. We went to each other’s bar mitzvahs. But he just seemed to have disappeared.

After I received the list, I googled Howie and learned he died of a heart attack, get this, in 1993 at age 48.

Who knew?

One obit said he was a “high-powered” attorney to stars like Stevie Wonder, Steven Spielberg, Tom Waits.

Who knew?

He was living in LA and I was in the Bay Area and we never saw each other after college — he went to Penn.

So the reason no one could find Howard was that he was dead.

Something about this troubles me deeply — and I can’t exactly say what.