How many friends have you had for over 45 years? I have at least 14 – thirteen from college and one from high school. I feel I am very lucky. I will tell you about the high school friend some other time; this post is about my thirteen college friends.
Chatting on the beach
To be fair, I actually have more old friends from college than the 13 I am claiming here, but these 13 are special in that they were in my pledge class – we pledged the same fraternity – Lambda Chi Alpha – in the same year – 1967. Some of you might think Animal House when you think “faternity” and I can’t deny that there were some experiences that involved too much alcohol, but this was M.I.T. and we were very intelligent drunks. We had a lot of fun. We created memories that are even now vivid. We really enjoyed being together.
After graduation we kept in touch. Periodically we would get together – maybe not all of us because we followed our careers all over the globe and, being busy, we couldn’t all make it every time. But more than half made it back every time a mini-reunion of the pledge class was arranged.
The most recent one was in late June, held at Charlie Snell’s lakeside cottage in New Hampshire and 9 of the 14 made it, which is pretty remarkable some 43 years after graduation. We talked, we reminisced, we laughed. And, yes, we drank, but not so much as in days of yore. And, most remarkably, we read poems that we had written. Not me as I only had limericks to offer, but quite a few of the others had written some couplets to mark the affair.
Copyright laws and the rules of good taste prevent me from including them here.
Roger and Nancy
Joan, Kay and Walt
Charlie, John, Bob and Dan