Day Three: Billy and Raymond

[captainsblog]

Nobody calls us that anymore. (Well, there's a small universe of people who've known me at least 35 years who can drop a Raymond-bomb on me without getting The Stare.) But we go back to the days when that's who we were, and on a mostly cloudy Saturday in very southern Pennsylvania, we met up for the first time since 1973 to pick up where we left off.



(Thanks to our Applebees waiter for a decent photo.)

We grew up three blocks apart, and were regular visitors to each others' homes and yards through elementary and early junior high.  Bill brought a class picture from fifth grade (which I'm sure has been uploaded, here or elsewhere but I just can't find it); I was able to "tag" just about every face in that group, most of whom I haven't seen, heard from or even thought of in well over 30 years.

His life and mine, though? Largely resumed where they'd left off. His father had to pack up a fairly large (for those small Cape houses) family in the summer of '73 to take a best-available job near Baltimore. Within a couple of years, they all moved again, to a better-still job in the DC area, but it made it hard for Bill and his siblings to start new friendships all over again.  He remembered things about our neighborhood, about kids we hung out with, that I hadn't thought of in several forevers.  He even remembered visiting me in the hospital in that last Long Island summer for him after I'd had my one kidney out.

Our kids are about the same ages (with one somewhat younger exception on his part), and we shared all of the same pride and joy about them.  His parents are still alive and still together, and I got to see pictures of the whole family together not long ago.

Our next meet will likely be with Mets- he'd like to come up for a game sometime- and I'm hoping to connect with him and maybe some of the other still-acquainted souls in that longago class picture who I still stay in touch with.

My travels ended the following day with a service of reconciliation in Syracuse, but friends like this? No matter how long you go without contact, you stay together.  And that is as it should be:)

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