Old Friends

Chances are, when one has plodded past the inglorious sixty-fourth milestone upon which I wistfully expounded on this website a few weeks ago, his circle of intimates will bend and creak under an equivalent weight of longevity -- as evidenced by the crude query posed by my elder son at a soiree I hosted last year for his newlywed siblings: "Dad, don't you have any young friends?"

To which my mordant response is, after a rigorous self-analysis, "I'm lucky to have any." But, indeed, after looking around, I cannot avoid labeling most of them, whether of recent or longstanding vintage, with the pejorative adjective synonymous with aged; simply put, we are all old. Recently, however, the term took on a new meaning, as the present encountered the past, with startling consequences.

My ruminations were prompted by a Sphex Club presentation during which the speaker, while explicating plausible causes for the so-called "mid-life crisis," a straw man which he subsequently debunked as a spurious affliction, cited the victim's sudden apprehension that the terminus of his earthly journey was drawing nigh faster than its gestation was receding. With the sands of the hourglass dwindling, the poor soul might either sink into a slough of despond or embark on a reckless spree of uncharacteristic adultery, alcoholism, extravagance, or self-indulgence.

While not denying any person's urge to reinvent -- or destroy -- himself, I argued that his conception of age had nothing to do with it. As rigidly as our schedules are circumscribed by the calendar, as meticulously as we erase days, weeks, months and years, as religiously as we commemorate our own and our family members' birthdays, we don't experience the past, nor do our minds comprehend time, chronologically.

Storytellers all, we filter out extraneous sights and sounds, some as fresh as yesterday, in favor of those events and incidents, some as distant as our youth, which, because of their humor, pathos, joyfulness, sorrow, impact, or import, are indelibly etched in our consciousness.

I never thought much about the elastic nature of time until I reconnected with a long-lost college friend back in 2002. He was living in Monterey, California, a pleasant drive down the coast from San Francisco, where I was attending a furniture dealers' convention.

In the blink of an eye, like the ends of a stretched rubber band snapping together, the continuum separating us collapsed, vanished, evaporated: fifty years of hope, despair, success, failure, love, marriage, divorce, parents, children, buying, selling, learning, growing, all gone like a dream forgotten.

If I was captivated by his unchanged appearance -- the angular build (with maybe a few extra pounds around the waist), olive complexion, narrow face, and deep, brown eyes that I recognized instantly -- and his unmistakable demeanor -- the sly grin and slight jerk of his head that always accompanied each of his endless repertoire of witty remarks -- they were mere preludes to the resourcefulness of his extraordinary memory. Effortlessly unwinding one anecdote after another, his thread entwining every player's blatant foibles, darkest secret, graphic nickname, and quiet nobility, he wove a magic carpet transporting me back to those mindless, innocent, wondrous days of studious mischief.

If, listening to him then, I laughed with wonder, today, remembering, I weep with longing.

Sadly, RAM wasn't able to join nine of his fraternity brothers, including me, who staged an impromptu reunion last month in -- where else -- Lexington, Virginia. Two of them were roommates of mine for two years, TMN and WSF; the latter was the only one of the group whom I had seen -- once at a class reunion -- since the day I graduated. While the other eight reprised a typical Washington and Lee weekend -- minus a six-pack or two -- I had to bow out after Friday night's festivities, since my stepdaughter was getting married the next evening.

A series of emails detailing decades of professional accomplishments and personal melodrama -- including a reassuring spate of divorces -- could hardly prepare me for the prospect of reacquainting myself with eight shadowy figures whom I hadn't seen, nor even communicated with, for forty-plus years. I was both duly energized and mildly apprehensive.

I could find comfort in having developed a modicum of socialization skills to replace the cluelessness of the insecure, introverted post-adolescent they might remember and in having maintained myself in reasonably good physical condition, a misplaced pride, as it turned, since all the others appeared equally fit and trim, except perhaps DCS, who had reported receiving a heart transplant in 2004.

The venue selected for this fraternal resurrection is an appropriate one, the historic Southern Inn on South Main Street, which has undergone its own makeover since the days when it seemed to be living off its reputation. Whenever my father came to Lexington to visit me or, more likely, the nearby Schewel store, he made a beeline for this local landmark, not because of the cuisine, which he never cared about, but because, like so many he touched in his expansive lifetime, the Greek owner was, yes, an old friend, this one from his own days as a student.

The current iteration, whoever its proprietors are, has gone upscale -- annexing the adjacent building and converting it into a lively watering hole, adding a semi-private dining room on the second floor, where our party gathers, and providing a menu and service worthy of four stars.

I am the first to arrive -- most of the others have opted to warm up in the bar -- and stare in amazement as they trickle in, each singular appearance thrusting me deeper into a time warp, ratcheting up my sense of deja vu by a factor of eight. With a couple of minor variations, we could be sitting around the table in the basement of Phi Epsilon Pi. DCS and GJD, so inseparable back in the day one would have thought they were twins, now sport matching salt-and-pepper facial hair. And the declining health of WSF -- whose formerly golden locks and passion for motorcycles earned him the sobriquet "Troy" -- has reformed him from a hard-core party man into a subdued teetotaler.

WSF is one of three in attendance whose original marriage has endured, nay thrived, all these long years, thus earning my unqualified admiration. His wife is the same cute, demure, Southern Seminary coed introduced to him in his freshman year by his senior fraternity brother, TME, who's sitting next to her and across from me.

Preferring the coziness of a familiar face, I sit between my two classmates, WSF on my left and on my right MJH, actually nicknamed the "Face," for his striking good looks, as in Facebook, the ancient printed and bound version, pored over obsessively by stimulated male and female (I assume) undergraduates desperately seeking satisfaction. The face is a little fuller now and the buzz-cut red hair more stylishly combed over and sprinkled with gray, but the soft, measured diction and nasal Midwestern accent are unforgettable.

A research oncologist, MJH wearied of the academic life several years ago and joined the private sector, where he now conducts  tests for potential breakthroughs in cancer treatment. His background affords me the perfect opportunity to vent my frustrations with the escalating cost of health insurance for my employees, to flaunt my own resume as a hospital trustee, and to embroil him in the intractable dilemma inherent in serving those two masters. Ever the diplomat, MJH sympathizes, and then politely informs me that his company is on the cusp of releasing a revolutionary drug which can cure Hepatitis B, thereby eliminating expensive and risky liver transplants.

Peering down toward the other end of the table, I am stunned to recognize another roommate, TMN, still living in Tampa, the hometown to which he returned after graduation, not to enter his family's cigar business but to practice neurology. I maneuver his way, embrace him, and settle in to reminisce.

We attended each others weddings, his in Peoria, mine in Highland Park, Illinois, from which one might correctly surmise that, while we were both Jewish, I stayed within the faith, and he chose the daughter of a Methodist farmer. Our wives, his from Randolph-Macon Woman's College, mine from Sweet Briar, maintained the friendship they had established while the four of us were dating even after our dual divorces and until the day his ex, a non-smoker and the picture of health, died tragically from lung cancer in her early fifties.

We called him, the Hulk, because he was big, strong, fast, and incredibly talented, a virtuoso musician, who would sit at the piano in the fraternity house and improvise by ear any popular song one could name, who has never not played in a band, he says, even when at Vanderbilt Medical school, even when pulling all-nighters as a resident. He's twenty pounds lighter than when I knew him, evidence of a string of marathons that put my solo effort to shame, but immutable are his bulky hairstyle, burnished Florida tan, and the earnest look with which he bobs his head and repeats a remark he made just ten minutes ago. A kinder, gentler hulk there never was.

I can't help but love that man, and WSF also, who mysteriously pulls me aside after dinner, as if to share some juicy morsel of gossip. In hushed tones, he wants to apologize for his angry outbursts at me forty years ago -- which I don't remember, and even if I did, would probably admit to deserving them or dismiss them as typical juvenile behavior. After all, what's a few words between friends?

Liberated from the parental nest, granted a novel independence, thrust into a community of like-minded strangers, is it any surprise that we forge bonds during our collegiate careers that are of a unique, stronger mettle than than those of any other period? I can picture a high school gang as if they were standing before me -- KSK, MHR, RAC, NHH -- and yet the flavor of the memory is more bland, more indistinct, more ephemeral.

We went to the movies (not to parties), played bridge (instead of basketball), and drank beer in parked cars  (instead of groping girls). Far it be from me to judge my mates in retrospect -- maybe there were depths there I never fathomed -- but I am compelled to regard them as apples on the same tree: unathletic, lacking social graces, awkward with the opposite sex, and a little bit "nerdy," long before the epithet became part of the vernacular.

Friends we were for life, all the way to serious seventeen, and then we dispersed -- to college, medical school, and law school; to work, wives, and children; to Atlanta, San Francisco, and Baltimore. Only one circled back to his hometown, enticed by the challenges, opportunities, and, yes, security, of a stable furniture retailer poised for expansion.

One fellow, NHH, actually reversed the trend, attending Lynchburg College before migrating to Baltimore when coexistence with his father and two brothers in their family glass business proved to be as fragile as a windowpane. Since then, he has through sheer will and stubborn persistence refused to let bygones be bygones, to sever the ties that bind, steadfastly calling me whenever he came back to visit his mother, and, since her death, continuing to ring me at random with some odd request or recollection.

Back in August, JSG, her daughter, and I rendezvoused with NHH and his wife for a sumptuous brunch at the Rusty Scupper restaurant in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. As always with NHH, the conversation soon drifted from current events and family matters backward in time, as he plucked from the past one pearl after another as deliciously as we scooped oysters from the half-shell. NHH and I have a lot in common -- business, baseball, our Jewish roots -- and I could see us socializing on a regular basis were we some day to end up in the same place, a recycling which, if consummated, would, I suspect, be as rare as a happy remarriage. After all, friends come and go, like favorite neckties.

For example, I've heard rumors -- verified by a couple of sightings, a lone phone message a few years ago, and some fast internet research -- that another high school comrade, RAC, has been entrenched close by for a number of years. Why has neither one of us reached out to the other? Have our personal and professional paths so diverged since those halcyon days that all contact points have melted away?

If either party should bear a greater portion of the blame, I would be the one.

Because once I emerged from the fraternal, collegiate cocoon, hardly more mature than when I burrowed in, friendship became problematic for me. Looking around, I quickly perceived that the magnetic charges driving males (and to certain extent females) toward connectivity were sparked by activities in which I lacked the interest and, where required, the ability to enlist -- golf, tennis, boating, hunting, fishing, skiing, even attending spectator sporting events.

Combine that with the marriage compact, which dramatically alters the dynamics of friend-making -- hers and mine become ours -- and with a personality that was introverted, cerebral, inept at idle chit-chat, and completely comfortable pursuing happiness between the pages of War and Peace, and it follows naturally that I would delegate social-networking responsibilities to one wife and then, fifteen years later, to another.

Which suited me just fine; over the course of two marriages, they found me some wonderful friends.

Many persons, I have observed, look toward their colleagues in the workplace for camaraderie. However, when one is the boss, or the son of the boss -- which I have been since I first breached the portals of Schewel Furniture Company forty years ago -- it's best for him to maintain several degrees of separation between himself and those reporting to him. At the same time, it is essential that the boss be viewed as always approachable, receptive to suggestions and ideas, a pillar of support for subordinates under pressure, and a sounding board when problems arise.

My friendship with a few key managers with whom I work closely is genuine, gratifying, and professional, and has enabled me to fashion a role as their senior family member -- a mentor, counselor, coach, decision-maker, and leader who disciplines them when necessary but gives them the space to innovate, experiment, and take pride in their accomplishments.

If some of my best friends are employees -- to paraphrase the ubiquitous punchline -- some also are manufacturer's representatives who sell me products for my retail furniture stores. For these glib, polished wordsmiths, establishing personal relationships is an art and a skill, at which most are superbly adept, since their livelihoods depend on it.

Consider the difficulties inherent in the exercise. While most of us tend to attach ourselves to folks whose interests align with ours, these courageous icebreakers must adjust on the fly to the whimsical proclivities of their prospective customer. Like a job applicant preparing for an interview, I suspect that the most shrewd among them conduct a little research on their targets, which makes me an easy prey, since all my secrets -- well, most of them -- have been boldly revealed and exhaustively recorded on this website. Any cold-caller who has the initiative and patience to peruse a sampling will, besides earning my everlasting approbation, gather much useful ammunition for prying conversation from a person for whom that is a harder task than extracting a molar.

One friendly vendor actually told me he regularly read my blog because, "We always try to please our best customers," to which I replied, "I would rather you read it because you want to, not because you have to. You are allowed to drop the blog; I promise I won't drop your line."

My running habit must be common knowledge throughout the furniture industry, since the subject frequently comes up as an amiable door-opener. Ever the gleeful bearer of bad tidings, I jump at the opportunity to deflate my guest's enthusiasm by politely informing him that a chronic knee injury put the clamps on my favorite sport three years ago.

Such cynicism is not meant to cast doubt on the sincerity of my numerous friends in the furniture industry. In fact, if there's a fine line between loyalty to a salesman with whom our relationship far exceeds the merely transactional, to such an extent that we may have followed him as he hopscotched from one line of product to another, and making an objective merchandising decision, as long as the values are within our range of tolerance, we stick with our friends.

As such, I don't encourage, condone, or permit them to employ typical customer cultivation and solicitation tactics -- such as currying favor with gifts and meals. While a casual dinner or cocktail may be a simple way of expressing gratitude, for the perennial skeptic, such a perk may equate to a reward or bribe; my practice is to insist on going "dutch treat."

"Just how many volunteer boards do you serve on?" was the question posed the other night by an old friend. We were in the Latin Club together at E. C. Glass School, as evidenced by the 1960's scanned newspaper photo tacked to my bulletin board which he recently presented to me, fell out of touch, and then reunited twenty years ago when, having just moved into the house where I live now, I saw him, my new neighbor, walking his dog up the street.

If the number itself -- six or seven -- is irrelevant, its implications are not. All the free time I have available to devote to non-profits -- and I have an abundance -- is purely a byproduct of the competence, dedication, and diligence exercised daily by the aforementioned cohort of employee friends who are responsible for the success of my company. Any accolades showered on me have truly been earned by them.

Having acknowledged to more than one confidante occasional lapses of attention during meetings and a habitual negligence when it comes to reading all the preliminary materials, (except when I have been chairman), I have always maintained that the benefits accruing from my involvement with such organizations as Centra Health, the YMCA, the Presbyterian Home, the Salvation Army, the United Way, and New Vistas School far exceed my meager contributions of time and money; the two most prominent are a continuing education in all their various fields of service, and the opportunity to acquire a host of friends -- heroes, leaders, and servants from every walk of life, who love their community and are striving every day to make it a better place for all its citizens.

Divorce plays havoc with one's social network, especially when to a great extent it's been crafted by his former spouse. In most situations I am familiar with, including my own, mutual friends take great pains to remain neutral, no matter if they may have been more closely allied with one or the other partner. Most are astute and sensitive enough to subscribe to the universal conceit, "There are two sides to every story," especially when it comes to foundering marriages. And after my own hit the rocks three years ago, I was humbled and gratified when they rallied around me with sympathy and support.

Sometimes one finds his best friends close to home. The day I told them about my divorce, having procrastinated for two months, my two sons uprooted themselves from their busy schedules to converge in Philadelphia with my daughter and me for an exhilarating weekend.

Left to my own resources, I discovered an untapped mine of congenial folks out there just waiting to get to know me -- as much as that is possible -- with whom I formerly seemed to have (How do I state this delicately?) little in common. Like GGD, a tow-headed, freckle-faced kid even at sixty-five; always cheerful, optimistic, and shiny, even in the face of adversity; the confidential sidekick every rookie bachelor needs, until he and his wife happily reconciled and I latched on to a lovely lady of my own.

When one door closes, another opens. And one of the joys of entering a new relationship, besides, of course, finding a new best friend, is how both partners' circles fold into each other and, like an expanding organism, yield a product twice as large. I was even invited to join her couples' book club, and, after a proper period of probation, was permitted to pick one, Trollope, naturally.

Still, I'm a private person, who enjoys his own company as much as anyone else's, my significant other excepted, of course. Intermittently, I manage to gather up enough energy for brief bursts of socializing, after which I retreat to my own reveries or reading material. Which is why I will never linger for hours in a bar talking football or trading tall tales, take an extended vacation with other males or couples which demands 24/7 conversation, or be the most sought-after life of the party.

For someone like me then, the question is, "Will all his old friends ever be anything other than pleasant acquaintances?" I certainly like to think so, however they may regard me. And if one measure of friendship is sharing profound thoughts, poignant feelings, acerbic opinions, and mundane adventures, I encourage them to google "My Occasional Pieces."