Gathering

A post covid reunion with two friends I met when I was 4 and 5 years old got me thinking friendship. We represent multiple careers paths. One with a life time spent in tool and die as a machinist and a shop manager. The other a diesel mechanic turned firefighter and educator with a side line in hospital building engineering. And me with a list too long to catalogue but much of it spent in health care. 

At our gathering I mentioned the complete lack of sports in our childhoods. Most of our time, whether summer or winter, was spent in one garage or another. There were bicycles, minibikes, Model A’s, Triumph sports cars, motorcycles, various boats, and other mechanical projects. 

 

At some point in our late teens, we went our various ways off to school, to work, to see the world. Thankfully over sixty-five years we managed to keep in touch. It is quite a remarkable feat. When discussing certain memorable events there are now a few disputed interpretations due to, I imagine, the complications of sixty year old memories. 

 

That said most memories are etched in stone. Priests, nuns, and teachers we were exposed too stand out. Some are remembered more fondly than others. Some who in this day would be driven from the teaching profession. Overall, each of us had a firm enough foundation that the various travails thrown at us hardly mattered. 

 

We have vivid memories of each other’s families. Irish, Italian and German traditions color each recollection. I am still terrified of one friend’s beloved family dog that would have dispatched me at an early age had it been let into the room. The neighborhood, where I continue to live, was mainly German and Irish back then as were the churches and restaurants and bars.

 

It was a small Chicago neighborhood that was centered around the church and grammar school. At some point one of us moved to the suburbs. We attended different high schools, some Catholic, some not. Got exposed to a world of different people. Made other friendship, met and married spouses, had children. 

 

When I was young it was a common joke that our elders lived in the past. We tolerated their memories which were brought up whenever the conversation lagged. I get it now, even as I continue to add to my experiential bank. Are my new adventures as potent as the past ones; are they on an equal footing; I can’t say.

 

What I can say is that these and other prized relationships are invaluable. In fact, they are what make up the neuronal pathways that propel each day forward. An adage I see each morning when I walk into the kitchen says: Time is not passing, Time is coming. Keep it coming!