I have successful friends. Guys I grew up with and have known since I was a tot (not a word I normally use) went on to become attorneys, principals, artists and health care professionals.
Yet every time we get together the conversation turns to our junior high and high school years or the years that came directly after.
We have told the same stories, about the same people, for more than 30 years. Yet they still make us laugh, sometimes uncontrollably. I suspect that’s because they make us feel younger, entice us to think back to the times in our lives that were simpler. Irresponsibility can spin some funny tales.
There are the crazy escapades in vehicles; we all drove like Steve McQueen in Bullitt. Stories about our misbehaving in school are always a hoot. Many of the stories we tell involve the consumption of alcohol. It’s funny, I can’t remember things that happened to me yesterday, when I was stone cold sober. But I have perfect recollection of a night 30 years ago when I was three sheets to the wind (a phrase I don’t often use).
I’m not pointing fingers; I’m as likely to tell a story about the "good old days" as any of my friends. Some of them are funny. We were a close-knit group and the stories we tell remind us of that. We don’t see one another nearly as much now. We are all well into our careers and lives and familes and those things supercede even the closest of high school friendships.
A few years ago, a group of us decided that we would get together on Monday nights during the football season to watch Monday Night Football at one of the area’s fine food and drink establishments. We haven’t missed a Monday night since.
It has helped make that an even more special day. I always look forward to seeing these guys and telling the same stories we’ve told one another year after year after year.
You would think those stories would get old. But they don’t. They help keep the bond among us strong.
I hope we’re telling the story about how I grabbed the index finger of a junior high science teacher after he pointed it at me in anger for the next 25 years. I could listen to the stories of how my friend, Ron, nearly killed us with his crazy driving. Or how Doug got into a fist fight in the school auditorium before first hour one morning. We’ve got a million of them, not all of which are blatantly juvenile.
These are our stories. And it’s our responsibility to keep them fresh in our minds.