“To Mary,
Friendship matters more than Race.
Wink — May 31, 2023”
On Wednesday of this week, I got together with two high school classmates to remember, to catch up and to commiserate. We were the leaders sort of speak in a small town high school in the late 1970s. Southern and suburban, our memories were good ones. At the time, the leading scandal was a classmate who had gotten pregnant in the 10th grade. Small town people talk and it was presumed the two who got married would never last. In fact, they are still happily married to this day. We will surely fail when we caricature and stereotype people.
I began the stroll down memory lane by bemoaning how our bodies were failing us even though our minds remained strong. Mary and Scott readily agreed with me. I knew of what I spoke since I had stumbled and fell on March 2. Normally, a stumble and fall as a teenager or even a middle-aged guy would have been forgotten after a minute or two. When my right shoulder made contact with the concrete sidewalk, I dislocated my shoulder. I was in absolute agony for seven hours until the folks in the emergency room put me under anesthesia and forced my non-conforming shoulder back into its proper socket. I learned my age that day. Mary and Scott shared comparable tales.
And yet the three of us were blessed. We were all relatively healthy and appeared as youthful avatars for the Thomas Dale High School Class of 1979. It tore my heart to hear about a cherished classmate suffering from MS, another classmate diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, that thirty of our classmates out of a class of about 550 had passed away. One day, we will all weaken, become frail, and suffer indignities. I try not to think of our respective futures. Instead, I focused on how good Mary looked and the silly crushes among us that never died over the years.
When we were in high school, no one was gay. No one was out of the closet. It was just the time and the place. (A white hotel maid just checked to see if I needed anything. I said, no.) We talked about it, that there must have been classmates who were gay but feared the reception of family and friends. Mary mentioned that Jim and Joe were gay. I was surprised, particularly since I had met Joe for coffee at Starbucks in Chester three or so years ago. Scott suggested that everyone doesn’t wear their sexual orientation on their sleeve.
We then shared our own family stories of gay children. Scott has a son who is gay. I have a daughter who is gay. And it was normal and accepting as we shared our experiences about how we found out. Such a change from 1979! Such a casual conversation about gay family members would have been unimaginable in our southern small-town suburb. The world had changed and we had changed over the decades.
I almost forgot to mention race. You see, we were friends, the three of us. In high school within the shadow of a Confederate solider at the Courthouse and the name of Jefferson Davis on a state highway, we were all nerds and focused on grades and student council and our futures. Those shared memories and feelings have never gone away. When we were young, we all knew poverty and deprivation regardless of race. What we did not know was a narrow, hardening of racial arteries. So, yeah, the three of us talked about race for a nanosecond because that was the topic of my book. In reality, the race talk was forced because, at a tender age, we learned to live in friendship, not race.
Is there life after high school? There is indeed life after Thomas Dale High School Class of 1979. And in our lives, we have carried in our hearts the best of what we learned in our southern, small-town, suburban school.
We carried the capacity for friendship.
Dedicated to all of our classmates from the TDHS Class of 1979 whom we have lost along the way.
Wow, Mary sent this to me and it is so well written. I enjoyed lunch, catching up, learning about families, and just enjoying the stories. You have to say we’ve all been blessed with a wonderful life and there is so much more ahead for us. Now I’m looking forward to getting your book back from my daughter when she finishes. Here’s to the great class of ‘79!
Cheers
Love it! What a great time we had reminiscing at lunch! So proud of you and all of our TDHS classmates! Long live the Class of ‘79 Knights!