I had an interesting discussion the other day with a friend I’ve known for awhile. He wasn’t a fellow alumnus of my high school—I attended Cinnaminson High—but, according to him, as his father used to say, we went to different schools together. I graduated in 1971, and he graduated in 1972 from a high school a little farther north.
He mentioned how amazing it was that now, some 40 years later, he was beginning to reconnect with old schoolmates. (For the record, I prefer the term “schoolmates” to classmates. We all seem to have a lot of friends from different grades or even different schools who were all getting our educations in roughly the same place at roughly the same time. So while these folks aren’t technically classmates, I think schoolmates defines them perfectly.)
At any rate, my friend was explaining how when he was a senior in high school, he and two buddies enlisted in the Marine Corps under what was then called delayed enlistment. They signed up, got sworn in, and were then allowed to finish school before reporting for duty. Then, under what was called the Buddy Program, they all went off to enjoy Marine boot camp together. Sounds like a great way to spend your first summer out of high school, no?
At any rate, after boot camp they were all assigned to different duty stations, but pretty much kept in touch. When their 3 years were up though, they all went their separate ways, and pretty much lost contact with each other.
My friend got out, went to college and became a successful entrepreneur. He’s been married twice and has 3 kids. The second friend got, went to college, and went back in, this time as an officer. He got married—also two times—along the way, has 2 kids, and now works for Homeland Security, after a 20+ year military career. The third friend got out, went to college, joined the CIA, was never married—but was often romanced—and traveled to over 80 countries. Friend #3 retired from the CIA after 28 years and now works as a security consultant for a government contractor.
After several decades of separation, these three schoolmates, best friends back in the day, all happened to reconnect with one another. It happened more by accident than anything, but once they were all in contact, they decided to get together for a drink and to catch up.
Well, the drink turned into dinner—a long dinner—and they realized that after spending several hours together that they hadn’t even really scratched the surface. During the mini reunion, they realized how different they now were, but how much the same also. (Again for the record, they’ve acquired an average of 1.3 wives and 1.6 kids between them, and have visited an average of 30 countries each.)
Well before the mini reunion ended, the newly reacquainted friends were planning the next one, and even the one after that. Mini reunion #2 will be a full-on dinner at a nice restaurant, and mini reunion #3 will be a family camping trip, planned for the spring.
They also decided, during the course of their informal get together, to start looking up other old schoolmates so that they could join them.
My friend’s point to me in all of this was how much fun these former Marines had on their mini reunion, and how much they were looking forward to the next one. He said though that the mini reunion came about out of necessity—none of them even know how to use Facebook.
Maybe there’s a lesson there for all of us.
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