After Thirty Years

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Imagine my surprise when I looked at Facebook this morning, and found that an old high school friend was in my little city today.

I got to know Peter, as I will call him, forty years ago, when we were in high school in Toronto. We were part of a group of friends who didn’t really fit in with the established cliques at high school (heck, we didn’t fit in with a lot of the other students anyway), so we made our own clique. And we were all great friends. After high school, and a few years after, we eventually went our separate ways, with only memories of those days together.

Then came Facebook, and we could all get back in touch. It was great to re-establish contact with the gang, but me having moved 2000 miles away to Alberta, it was difficult to meet up when the old gang gathered back in Ontario. So when I saw on Facebook that Peter and his wife were in town–they are retired, have a travel trailer, and are exploring Canada–a meeting was mandatory.

It had been thirty years since I last saw Peter in person. He looked older, as do I, but he was still the same person: witty, observant, and with that grin I remember so well. We had a great time catching up, and laughing about some of the shenanigans we used to get up to. His wife is a wonderful person, and a great match for him. What a fine evening we had, just catching up, and promising to keep in touch via more than just Facebook.

Have you ever had such an experience–where you meet up with an old friend in person many years later?

2

I’m happy to hear of your pleasant reunion. I too ran into an old friend I of mine in the service that I had not seen in over 20 years. He dropped in unannounced one day and asked if he and his wife could park their RV in our driveway and stay the night while headed out west. I happily agreed to it. Unlike the situation you describe, however, I found my friend had changed considerably over the years, and not entirely in good ways. Much of the joie de vivre he once exhibited was now absent and he seemed to have a pretty grim view of life. Perhaps this is an inevitable function of maturing, but we discovered by the end of the evening we really had little in common apart from the experiences we shared in the service. He departed the next day and I haven’t heard from him again.

3

I remember my aghast surprise the day I looked in a mirror (Facebook having not been invented yet) and found that I was thirty years old.