40 Years Of Friendship

Sometime last month I had an opportunity which I suspect is rarer and rarer in the modern world:  I celebrated a 40th friendship anniversary.

We - The Director, Uisdean Ruadh, and I - have never really formally settled on "The Date".  I can quite clearly tell you when it fell as I remember the month; the day remains sadly lost to that part of history that records where people first saw their spouses (before they met them) and the penultimate time we talked to a loved one.  We tentatively have used March 14th for no other date than it was as good as any.

I was a shy band nerd who came into high school from a very small feeder school and thus did not have a an initial support group.  Band gave me one of course, but in some ways one still lived in the almost "friendship by association" frame of mind.  My interests at that time - which were largely music, role playing, and science fiction (this in the age before computer gaming, of course) - were not really shared by anyone in my "group".

There was another freshman, a tuba player who seemed to be everything I was not:  charismatic, well spoken, plugged in (his older brother was also in band) and not only an player of role playing games but a writer of them.  I could hear the conversations of he and the group he was a part of and it sounded quite fun; I being the introvert I was (and still am) simply could not find it in myself to easily connect.  And so the Fall semester did connect.

We did end up connecting in the early Spring (the then-ubiquitous "Winter Band Trip) and found that we did indeed both have a connection in role playing.  From there we started to spend time out of band as well.  Life was good - he was in drama (I was not), but it was fun to hear his stories.

And then came the day I met Uisdean Ruadh.

As I have said, I cannot tell you the day but I can tell you the time:  it was a sunny March day during 5th period lunch.  I always brought my lunch and was headed in with The Director.  We were in the High School cafeteria, which had passable food but whose palm sized grease-laden chocolate chip cookies were the stuff of legend (to high schoolers, I fear.  These days my arteries would seize up looking at one).  He turned as saw someone and called out.  That someone was Uisdean Ruadh.  

I do not remember that conversation particularly - only that it was short - but that was, as they say, where the whole thing started.

From that humble beginning came all kinds of amazing things for three of us:  I learned drama and from our sophomore year on, there was never a play, a one-act, or a musical the three of us were not in.  We convinced Uisdean Ruadh to at least attend band functions (and I eventually moved to tuba).  We gamed (not so much Uisdean Ruadh, it was not his thing).  We met each other's parents and they, too, became our parents. We made our own drama group.  We came up with harmless but incredibly ridiculous displays of almost theatrical proportions.  People passed in and out of the association, but the three of us - The Director, Uisdean Ruadh, and myself - remained.

The odd thing - at least odd to me given the world then and now - is that we still stayed in contact even after high school ended.

We have been through a great many things in the intervening 40 years.  We have been through college and graduations and graduate school and military enrollment and dating and marriages and divorces and children coming and children moving on.  We have waded through religious discussions (Uisdean Ruadh a lifelong Catholic, myself a Protestant of various provenances, The Director a  Methodist that is now a Quaker) with respect - I suppose political discussions as well, if only that only the whole we avoid the subject entirely.  We have been through the death of parents that died early (The Director's mother at in high school), the ones that died a little later (Both The Director's and Uisdean Ruadh's fathers), and now the decline of those that remain (A Mathair na hUisdean Ruadh, TB The Elder, and Mom).  When I had to move from Old Home to New Home, one of the last celebrations anyone had for us was when both of them came down for my birthday.

We have managed to do this is a world that for many years was much less "connected" than it is now (letters were a thing once upon a time and phones were tied to the wall) and in a modern world where too often we are more likely to abandon friendships than maintain them.  We have done this across thousands of miles, in some cases when contact may have been months separated at a time.

When we get together - and fortunately it has become more frequent now that I am able to travel back - it is as if no time has slipped by at all.  The banter is the same as it ever was, the jokes as bad as they ever were (the only thing worse than a bad joke which is a running gag is one that extends across decades), and the memories are just as fun.  We talk about how our lives are going now and what we plan to do for the future.

It saddens me to think that not everyone has this opportunity.

There is a picture - taken some years back - of the three of us together at breakfast.  Thirty plus years has done work on all of us:  our faces are a little heavier, Uisdean Ruadh's flaming red hair has been mostly replaced by flaming pink skull and the rather full heads of hair on myself and The Director are sprinkled heavily (or more so in my case) with grey.  But the eyes are still as bright and nerdish as ever and what cannot be conveyed directly by the camera, the companionship and memories and frankly just fun, is just as fresh as ever.

We had decided to do some sort of celebration before the recent issue with Uisdean Ruadh's housing so we have put that on hold for a bit.  But we will do something to celebrate, even if it is a silly as "40 Stops for Food".  

I am grateful for their friendship and look forward to 40 more years.

PostScript:  In speaking with Uisdean Ruadh last night, he related to me that his mother's doctor has recommended she go on hospice.  It is not the end of the world as that might have been (TB the Elder was recently removed from hospice after a year), but a concerning sign - especially given all that is going on in their lives.  Your prayers for her health and his peace of mind are greatly appreciated.