Friends and Other Strangers

Friends and Other Strangers

The phone rang around 11 o'clock on Sunday morning while I was getting dressed. I'd gotten up hours earlier, run some errands and had read the Sunday newspapers. Now I, along with my wife, were getting ready to head out for the day's festivities. On the phone was my good friend Chuck with some bad news to report. He wasn't going to be able to make it to the picnic that day. He was suffering from a bad cold or some kind of sinus problems and just didn't feel up to it. I told him I was sorry for his misery and to take care. I told him I'd call after the picnic and let him know how it went. I hung up, shook my head and quietly said, “Dammit!”

I then yelled downstairs to my wife. “Chuck isn't going to go today. Says he has a cold or sinus or something.”

She replied, “Oh well.”

Sunday was the Class of '65 Spring Fling at a local city park and Chuck and I were both supposed to be attending, along with our wives. I had been unable to go to this annual event the previous couple of years because of scheduling conflicts – vacations and reunions that were impossible to move. This year, at last, my schedule was clear and I'd been looking forward to this picnic for some months. I was also hoping that Chuck would be able to attend. We were good friends from way, way back, grade school, actually, and I considered him my “lifeline” for this picnic. If I went to the get together and didn't hardly know anyone, at least Chuck and I could chit-chat. Now that alternative was off the table and I was flying solo today.

I was on my own.

Of course my wife would be with me and of course we could talk if none of my other friends from school were there. But... Well, I guess we'd just see how things transpired.

We loaded up the car with the necessary things we had to take to the picnic and headed off on our journey. It took about 5 minutes. The park where the picnic was to be held was only a few blocks from my house in the smallish city where we live. The three or four people from my high school class who were taking care of things had reserved one of the smaller pavilions for this soirée as they had done in the previous three years. The usual attendance in years past had been in the 20-30 person range and they were expecting about the same this year. It was a small group, but that was nicer in a way. You could end up seeing and talking to most of the attendees.

We arrived and carried our stuff from the car to the pavilion. We had our table service in our handy-dandy picnic hamper, our small cooler with a couple cans of pop on ice, our contribution to the pot-luck food table – two Key Lime pies and a bag of baked potato chips - and a “White Elephant” gift for the after-dinner bingo game. I'd pondered what to bring for this part of the festivities for quite a while, never having been to this gathering before and not being aware of what was “appropriate”. I figured that it was probably going to be mostly joke gifts, so I packed an ugly vase I'd bought at a garage sale a few weeks earlier for just that purpose.

I found out I was pretty much on target with it.

After we'd set up our dinner service – a well-used plastic tablecloth, plastic plates and silverware, we chit-chatted a bit with Valerie, my friend Chuck's cousin, who'd graduated the same year we had. I told her that Chuck had called and begged off this morning. She asked what his excuse was this time. I told her cold or sinus problems. She snorted and gave me that “couldn't he come up with a better excuse than that” look. I nodded and said, “Maybe he really is down with some misery. He did sound a bit nasal.” Valerie gave him the benefit of doubt and we went on talking about the upcoming picnic.

I graduated from high school in 1965 with a class of about 318 kids. I suppose that there were a couple dozen kids in those days that I was pretty good friends with, perhaps 3 times that many who I was friendly with. Maybe another fifty or so I could come up with their names and would nod to when we'd pass each other in the halls or in class. The rest? Not so much. Most not at all. I suppose you could say I wasn't as social as I could have been. A bit shy, if you wanted to put a name on it and I'd admit to it now. But I did have close friends and I did date when I was in school. I wasn't quite the blithering wallflower, but I wasn't the big-man-on-campus, either. My senior year I was dating someone from outside my school, so that probably shot down some opportunities I would have had to get to know some more of the kids in the class better.

So let's move forward almost exactly 44 years from graduation day. Here's a couple dozen people milling around the pavilion – some of them are your classmates and some of them are your classmates spouses.

Pick 'em out. Go ahead, pick 'em and put a name to 'em. I dare ya!

I'm sure glad I wasn't getting graded on this assignment. And you feel, in situations like this, at least I did, that your not knowing those people is a failing on your part. That you should be able to recognize these people, even if you'd only seen them every 5 or 10 years at reunions, if then. Some probably not since graduation.

Sorry folks. Didn't happen.

I did end up seeing and talking to a few of my classmates that I'd grown to know over the years since graduation and a few I did happen to remember vividly from those years.

And those personal reunions made the trip totally worthwhile all by themselves.

First there was Toni. Toni and I had dated a bit back in high school and I'd really liked her. We'd gone to some of the school dances together in those days. They seemed to occur almost every weekend. While we talked at the picnic table she remembered a particular Christmas dance we'd attended. We'd stopped either before or after the dance at a fancy restaurant just outside of town with another four or six kids from school. We ate steak and maybe lobster at the time. This was a very big deal for us. I think one of the rich kids who we were friends with paid the bill. When we first met at the pavilion that day, Toni came up to me and asked if I was who she thought I was. I acknowledged that her guess was correct and then I looked at her, looked at her big, dark glasses, her hair, her face. And I knew who she was then. I said, “Toni.” She smiled and we hugged each other. We talked for a while and I introduced her to my wife, albeit not as quickly as I should have (gotta watch that). I was too busy assimilating the Toni of today and comparing her with the Toni of the past. All too soon she had to leave for an hour or two as her family was having a picnic at another pavilion in the park and she had to slip down there for a while.

Then there was Barbara. She and I had connected about 4 years ago after our last major class reunion, the 40^th. We hadn't been particularly close in school, but she'd found out that we had an odd connection. We were both born on the same day! Actually only hours apart and in the same building. She'd started to write me emails and we got friendly with each other by doing that. We called each other “my twin.” We shared some reminiscences in our emails and wrote about our lives since high school. She was, at that time, married, retired from being a schoolteacher teaching grade school, and living in New Hampshire. We made sure we sent each other birthday greetings and we never had ANY problem remembering what that day was! And we sure couldn't lie to each other about how old we were! Barbara could probably be voted as the most preserved of all of our class. I won't tell her age, but she looked almost 20 years younger than the rest of us. It was great to talk to her again, too.

I talked to Gary and Carol who were a major part of getting this Spring Fling organized and rolling. Gary is the sysop of the bulletin board that keeps the class together, www.woosterclassof65.com. The pavilion where we meet carries his last name, but I'm not sure if it's just a coincidence or if his family had some influence in erecting it. It was nice to see them again.

And I talked for a bit with a fellow named Steve. Steve was a guy whom I'm sure I hadn't spoken two words to since graduation. We'd been in Boy Scouts together for a couple years, but really didn't run in the same crowd in school. He'd gone on to a number of ventures over the years after school including owning his own automobile dealership. Steve had what could be charitably called an unfortunate face. Not classically handsome, I guess, could be another way of saying it, and he was always terribly thin. But the boy and man had a thousand-watt personality and, during his school years, NEVER went without a friend or a date. He was Mr. Popular, personified. I was happy to speak to him again, too.

I also spoke a bit to some of the other folks there. Some were familiar but I couldn't come up with a name. Others were friendly but whether they were classmates or spouses? Don't know.

But you know what? It really didn't matter! We were all of an age and of a certain generation. We'd experienced life in the same decades and we all connected, we clicked. It was doggone nice to see them, too.

Whoever they were!

Our lunch was quite tasty, starting with hot dogs freshly grilled by Gary and continuing through ham loaf, pizza, beans, spuds, deviled eggs, salads both vegetable and fruit, and various and sundry very tasty desserts. It would have been impossible to go home hungry.

After the meal we commenced with the White Elephant Bingo game. There were about 20 gifts sitting wrapped on the table as prizes. The first bingo got to pick one of them. The next ones also got their pick. We all kept our same bingo cards going, so the bingos got heavy and frequent quite soon. Everyone got multiples. After the table had been cleared of gifts, subsequent bingos got to steal gifts from previous winners. Some of the gifts passed through a dozen hands or more during the game. Some of the women thought this was hilarious and were laughing until tears were coming out of their eyes. When all the cards were filled and all the numbers had been called, the gifts in front of you were yours to keep. Everyone ended up with at least one gift and some of them were quite clever. One was a box of graham crackers, a bag of marshmallows, a chocolate bar and some firewood. Do-it-yourself s'mores! Another was a Garfield the Cat telephone which has been floating around these Flings since the start. I expect to see it wrapped up again next year. There were books and vases and candles and holiday plates. In my gift bag was a brick. A brick? I was mystified about it until the person who brought it explained that it came from the construction site of our old high school when it was being remodeled into a grade school a number of years ago. It was a piece of my old high school! I thought it was a perfect gift for a high school get together!

Soon after the bingo game finished and we'd all examined and exclaimed our satisfaction or mystification over the various gifts, the people began to pack up and head out. Some were heading back to hotels and then to various airports and flights to take them back to where their homes were. Some had long drives ahead of them to neighboring states or even further. A few of us stick-in-the-muds had only short miles or even short blocks to go before returning home.

I said farewell to the few classmates who meant the most to me with hugs and promises to write and to see each other again as soon as we could. I waved and nodded to the others, receiving the same in kind. I looked around, trying to fix faces, trying to remember, trying to place us all, at this place, at this time.

The dates have been fixed for next year's Fling. It'll be a bigger and better one than usual – it's our 45^th reunion time and they're planning three days of various get togethers. The whole class will be, again, invited to join us.

I wonder if what's-her-name will be there? Or if ol' who's-it will make it this time?

That'd be SO nice!