Glancing over my Facebook feed today, I noticed a post from my high school group, West High Class of 73. It said “We have lost a dear member of our class.” Included was the obituary for Elizabeth Connie Kelson. I didn’t recognize her. The fact we graduated 49 years ago could explain that but I still wondered. I clicked the link that showed everyone else in the group. It showed 143 members. The first two were friends on both my personal page and this group. I gave them a half smile and started to scroll. As the names rolled by, I was genuinely surprised how many didn’t look at all familiar. That would make sense with the girls since most (I guess) had their married name listed, but even the guys didn’t ring a bell. I kept scrolling until I found a familiar name. Opening the page I could see nothing new had been posted since 2013. Humm…dead maybe…or maybe has a life and doesn’t need Facebook. Opening the next male name, I remembered him as a neighbor’s grandkid that I knew. I remembered in junior high he was a really talented artist. During a shared art class, we were instructed to draw an animal, whatever we wanted. I was horrible at realistic stuff and doodled, but this classmate drew an amazing pheasant. He worked on it all class and then as he walked out, he crumpled it up and threw it away. Why, I thought? For some reason I grabbed it and took it home. Days, maybe weeks later, I saw his grandparents outside in their yard. I lived literally across the street so I saw them frequently; that’s how I knew the connection with my classmate. I still had the crumpled pheasant and decided to give it to them. As I walked up, they said “Hi”. At that point I asked if they knew how good an artist their grandson Brent was. They looked surprised and shook their heads. I handed them the drawing. They looked at me with confusion. “Brent drew this” I said. They were shocked and thrilled. “We had know idea he was this good. Thank you!” I nodded my head and walked across the street. I forgot until Monday, when Brent confronted me about the picture. He was super pissed off and said I had no right to do that. When I asked what the big deal was he kept yelling. “It was mine! You had no right!” To put things in perspective, I was bigger and stronger than him by a wide margin, so I wasn’t scared, just curious. “Brent, you threw it away and I picked it up. It was mine to give.” He stared at me for a time and then walked away. I don’t recall that we ever spoke again much. His Facebook page showed his profession as management at Hydraulic Controls. I wonder if he ever drew after that. I found another familiar name and clicked. A few more recent posts, but not a ton. I remember he was the “Cool” kid. I say that because I thought he was, and probably still is. Before my time in high school and until 1999, the primary way to meet the other sex was to cruise State Street. Friday and Saturday from dark until midnight you grabbed the nicest ride you could and drove from about 100 or 200 south to 2100 south. Top speed was maybe 10-15 mph. Warm weather was preferred because you needed to have your windows down to try and have conversations before you got separated. This friend had the perfect ride. Shortbed Chevy Cheyenne pickup; lifted with custom wheels and big tires. It was lime-green and white with a rollbar and fog lamps. A very loud stereo was a given. I had a nice car; 70 Challenger, but a lifted 4X4 was “It”. I scrolled on. There were others that were familiar but in a different “Circle”. I wasn’t in any clubs and didn’t run for office so I wasn’t in that group. Football. I played football for a minute. I was an athlete and excelled at any sport I chose, but my closest friends were not. Several tried out but didn’t have the ability—or the stability to put up with the team taunts and abuse and dropped out. I figured out in short order these individuals were not my type either so I left. This is partly due to an experience I had with my coach prior to high school that effectively ruined my taste for competitive sports. I saw other names that were vaguely familiar but the years have clouded so many faces and names. So back to the first two names that came up. One is a friend I reconnected with many years ago. Sometime ago, July 2021 to be exact, I reached out to see if they (he and his wife) would be interested in getting together. We had all had our “shots” but his wife belonged to a more sensitive group so he graciously postponed until a later, safer date. As of this writing, that date hasn’t arrived and maybe it never will. The other, is my closest friend still living. We touch base rarely. I have initiated a conversation via messenger over the years, but it is always short-lived. If there is a 50-year reunion we might get together, who knows?

Is the above behavior common? Do most people lose touch like that? I was going to say normal instead of common but each person is so different who’s to say which is which? Whatever the reason, I have lived in the same city for 39 of the 49 years I have been out of high school and can count on one hand the classmates I have run into. Obviously our interests were different and not being engaged in the dominant local religion will affect that as well, but I couldn’t have hidden better if I tried. Conversely, my wife seems to run into old school mates quite often, so who knows. Reflecting back on a life as an only child that was raised by a secretive and solitary mother, did I really expect a different outcome? I had no known family to interact with and because my elementary years were attending a school miles away from my home, my school chums were only that, school chums. I like to think I have adapted ok enough to survive.

If you are the sociable type, how much effort do you make to stay connected or does it just come naturally? Do you force yourself to attend certain activities because you have to or is it out of a shared sense of community? Is the time you’ve spent nurturing and developing a relationship worth it in the long run? I should qualify something here—my questions are non-family related and directed towards friends, colleagues and associates. I do communicate with my closest family regularly, but even then, it is a really small group I’m referring to, seven total. I purse my lips as I write this; I have new family that I met while searching for my father and was communicating with them often that haven’t heard from me in months. I learned well how to establish a relationship, just not how to maintain one. I have built relationships in the thousands through my sales career and acknowledge that although being a “Good guy”, if ever asked about me the individual questioned will probably say, oh yeah, I wondered what happened to him.