{"id":2910,"date":"2014-07-12T23:23:18","date_gmt":"2014-07-13T03:23:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/?p=2910"},"modified":"2014-07-12T23:23:18","modified_gmt":"2014-07-13T03:23:18","slug":"old-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/12\/old-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"Old friends"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How many friends have you had for over 45 years?\u00a0 I have at least 14 &#8211; thirteen from college and one from high school.\u00a0 I feel I am very lucky.\u00a0 I will tell you about the high school friend some other time; this post is about my thirteen college friends.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2917\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141835.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2917\" class=\"size-large wp-image-2917\" alt=\"Chatting on the beach\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141835-1024x682.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"426\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141835-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141835-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141835-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141835-400x266.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2917\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chatting on the beach<\/p><\/div>\n<p>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 &#8211; we pledged the same fraternity &#8211; Lambda Chi Alpha &#8211; in the same year &#8211; 1967.\u00a0 Some of you might think <em>Animal House<\/em> when you think &#8220;faternity&#8221; and I can&#8217;t deny that there were some experiences that involved too much alcohol, but this was M.I.T. and we were very intelligent drunks.\u00a0 We had a lot of fun. We created memories that are even now vivid.\u00a0 We really enjoyed being together.<\/p>\n<p>After graduation we kept in touch.\u00a0 Periodically we would get together &#8211; maybe not all of us because we followed our careers all over the globe and, being busy, we couldn&#8217;t all make it every time.\u00a0 But more than half made it back every time a mini-reunion of the pledge class was arranged.<\/p>\n<p>The most recent one was in late June, held at Charlie Snell&#8217;s lakeside cottage in New Hampshire and 9 of the 14 made it, which is pretty remarkable some 43 years after graduation.\u00a0 We talked, we reminisced, we laughed.\u00a0 And, yes, we drank, but not so much as in days of yore.\u00a0 And, most remarkably, we read poems that we had written.\u00a0 Not me as I only had limericks to offer, but quite a few of the others had written some couplets to mark the affair.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright laws and the rules of good taste prevent me from including them here.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2916\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141822.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2916\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2916\" alt=\"Roger and Nancy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141822-300x200.jpg\" width=\"270\" height=\"180\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141822-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141822-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141822-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141822-400x266.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 270px) 100vw, 270px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2916\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Roger and Nancy<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_2919\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141821a_2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2919\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141821a_2-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"Joan, Kay and Walt\" width=\"270\" height=\"180\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2919\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141821a_2-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141821a_2-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141821a_2-150x99.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141821a_2-400x266.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141821a_2.jpg 1670w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 270px) 100vw, 270px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2919\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Joan, Kay and Walt<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_2914\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141821.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2914\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2914\" alt=\"Charlie and John\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141821-300x199.jpg\" width=\"270\" height=\"180\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141821-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141821-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141821-150x99.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0622141821-400x266.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 270px) 100vw, 270px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2914\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Charlie, John, Bob and Dan<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How many friends have you had for over 45 years?\u00a0 I have at least 14 &#8211; thirteen from college and one from high school.\u00a0 I feel I am very lucky.\u00a0 I will tell you about the high school friend some other time; this post is about my thirteen college friends. To be fair, I actually &hellip; <a class=\"read-excerpt\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/12\/old-friends\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&raquo;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[48,9,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-friends","category-places-nh","category-places"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1VniU-KW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2910"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2921,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2910\/revisions\/2921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}