It happens a lot when you get to the point where you are well into the eighth decade of your life.
I received news today of the passing of another kid from my youth.
Irene was a classmate all through school, Grade 1 to 12. We had good childhood rapport and many things in common -- spoiled brats, neither of us having any brothers or sisters. We lived a block apart and our dads were coincident barbers in our home town of Dresden. We were not brilliant students by any stretch of the imagination, Irene getting the edge over me however. We often worked on homework assignments together. More often than not it was me borrowing Irene's notebook to catch up with study projects on which I had procrastinated.
We were wrong-handers (lefties), Irene writing more backhanded than me. (Funny the things that stand out in your mind.)
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| Irene, 1938-2020 |
During our final years in high school we formed a Teen Club with me as president and Irene as secretary-treasurer, the goal being to organize Saturday night dances on the squeaky second floor of an old downtown hall. Two years later Irene had married a local school teacher and I had vacated the town to seek fame and (mis)fortune in the professional baseball world.
It may be the nostalgist in me, but I maintained an undisclosed affinity for all the kids that I grew up with and thought of them often over the ensuing years. Mainly though my mother I was able to keep up with most of them via updates on careers, marriages and inevitable children. Always, however, I remembered them as they were when teenagers in their lighthearted, carefree innocence.
The last time I saw Irene was at one of my book signing events in Dresden about 10 years ago. She had changed a lot in the 50+ years since I had last seen her and for a moment I did not recognize her. After a hug, the memories came flooding back. We had both lost life partners and were now grandparents, life having unfolded for us as it customarily does...
...Life that we can never have back, except in the annals of our minds. Too bad! I would have a lot of things to say to my old friends, if only I could.
Irene, while born in the nearby community of Florence, remained a dearly loved life-long resident of Dresden. She had been ill for some time but I am told that she went to her heavenly rest still living in her family home on Hughes Street, still just a block away from where I used to live.
As I write this post, I am missing someone who I only saw once briefly in the past 65 years. How is that possible?
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