Sometimes school classmates become life-long friends or reconnect later in life and become closer or just move on and aren’t seen any more—at least that’s my experience.
Schooling started for me in P.S. 33 in the Bronx, and I was there from kindergarten through 5A. (They had skipped me a half term.) There’s no one I remember from those years at all.
Many years later, when I was in my seventies, I discovered and connected with a previously unknown 2nd cousin. It turned out we both had started in the same school at the same time. We probably were classmates those many years ago.
My family moved to Yonkers when I was still nine years old, and I spent the 6th grade in P.S. 21 there (skipping a half term again, since they had no 5B class) and moving on to Mark Twain Junior High School the next year for the 7th grade.
The quality of the junior high was poor, so my parents decided to send me to a small private school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, where a neighbor family sent their sons. (We had just moved to a different Yonkers neighborhood.)
I spent the 8th grade and four years of secondary school there, the Barnard School for Boys.
One of my Barnard classmates and I attended the same collage, rooming together freshman year, but we gradually drifted apart and ultimately lost track of one another.
Another high school classmate contacted me in very recent years, and we’ve become somewhat pen-pals. He’s the only person I’ve had contact with from my first 12 years of schooling (in the four different schools).
College was a different story. I went to Amherst College in western Massachusetts, and I still have strong and close friendships with some of my old classmates there.
One, a roommate, and I helped one another in mutual discernments of our vocational futures, and he, Methodist minister, and I, Catholic priest, have remained fast friends.
I reconnected with another classmate about 35 years ago when I was starting work with a Vatican agency, Catholic Near East Welfare Association. At that time, he was a distinguished graphic designer and artist.
We began to collaborate in many things. His advice and assistance about graphic design enhanced my organization’s publications, and he helped develop the skills of my staff. There were even occasions when he would join me in field trips to some of the geographic areas we served and become familiar with some of the people we assisted and their religious leaders.
I reconnected with another old friend, college roommate and classmate, a distinguished semi-retired physician and kindred spirit, about 10 years ago.
We’ve visited together a few times and discovered how many values we share and happy memories as well.
I’ve been only to three college alumni reunions, but there are still several friends with whom I’ve enjoyed many exchanges of experiences over the years.
The most perduring relationships, not surprisingly, have been with fellow or former priests from my five years of post-graduate studies in St. Joseph’s Seminary of the New York Archdiocese. As classmates and later as fellow laborers in the vineyard, we had many commonalities and shared experiences.
The Beatles got it right, “I get by with a little help from my friends.”
5 January 2021