My mother was always amazed that the friends I ran with 55-plus years ago still got together several times a year and were just as noisy and, in her words, “full of fish.”
There was a core group of nine or 10 of us who met early on through organized sports and then cemented our friendships when we entered that scary house of adolescence known as junior high school. There’s something to be said about departing boyhood and the arrival of puberty when it abruptly knocks on the door of becoming a teenager.
My mother never missed a chance to question my friends whenever they were at the house. She worked 50 years as a secretary in the pre-med office and religion departments at Muhlenberg College. She recalled conversations with young college students who used her as an audience to unveil their fears and frustrations about life and what the future might hold. So she knew hyperbole, truth, outright lies and casual fibs when she heard them.
And, like my mom, many of my contemporaries find it rather extraordinary that after all this time we still “hang out,” secure in our friendships and love for one another. We all possess the good-natured ability to rib and mock, and indulge over and over again the same embellished, boorish, but mostly true stories.
After high school, college and the start of careers, we would check in on each other when circumstances warranted or when they shamed me into having a party. Turns out, “the party” became a competitive doubles pingpong tournament that lasted 40 consecutive years until COVID hit in 2020.
It was my parents who clearly modeled for my sisters and I what it meant to be a true friend. They were married in 1948 — fresh off post-World War II hugs, kisses and scars — ready to take on whatever was about to come their way. Together, with longtime friends who had similar aspirations, they grew their families, enjoyed the fun found in simple dreams and shared them all for the next 50-odd years.
Four couples — each having designated roles with traditional holiday picnics: Kermit and Rosita had Memorial Day, Jean and Ted had 4th of July, my parents were awarded Labor Day and Curt and Marion brought everybody’s favorite, good cheer and baked beans.
I remember the steel Coleman cooler filled with bottles of Schmidt’s beer and Coca-Cola; beanbags for the kids and quoits for the adults. But it was the lively conversation and smiling faces of my parent’s friends telling their tales that always caught my attention.
Loud afternoon laughter echoed across the backyard and at the end of the evening, everyone pitched in to clean up — plates, silverware, trays with empty glasses, unfinished food taken up to the kitchen, lawn chairs and games stacked and stored. The leftovers were sealed, divided evenly and brought out to their respective cars for an end-of-the-day wave and “thanks for coming.”
Tradition seems to have stuck with me. The positive influences from these people serve as a happy reminder to just how important good friends and family are — ones you know you can count on in a pinch — a true testament to the way our parents raised us.
Although, almost all of them are no longer with us, there is comfort in knowing that the lessons and love they instilled remain and are still affectionately shared and talked about through the voices of their sons and daughters, and into the ears of the next generation of families — notably, my two children and two grandchildren.
And about those childhood friends I mentioned: Unfortunately we’ve lost a few, but new friends have happily joined us in our circle of competitive hijinks.
Fortunately, we’re all well past puberty, and headed straight down the road toward turning 70. Yet, somehow in our minds we still think we can play just as hard and run just as fast, the way we did growing up. We may not be able to perform like kids, but we can certainly act like them.
And, in regard to the pingpong tournament that lasted all those years — well, it turns out nobody seems to want to bend over and chase the ball anymore. So we switched to cornhole.
Here’s to another 40 years.
John Schmoyer is a retired U.S. history/American government teacher and department chair at Northwestern Lehigh School District.