Old Friends

So this turned out to be a week of seeing, via Zoom, and talking to some people I hadn't in decades. The first was my old friend Tere.

Tere was a year behind me at UM -- she moved into the apartment next to mine on campus, our beloved Building 22. It was a three story almost barracks style building, built for the crush of UM students after WW II. Ours housed Honors students, and was a highly sought after place to live on campus -- 4 students shared a 2 bedroom, one bath apartment, with a kitchen and living and dining room. I lived in 22Z from February of '80 until I graduated in May of '83, and it's where Barry and I were roomies and grew close as brothers.

Tere moved in with Sandy Z, a friend since high school, as both grew up in Hialeah, and another Hialeah girl, Edee. Their fourth was Sandy VD -- her initials, not the disease -- and the 4 of them grew very close, too. With the guys from my apartment, along with Eric, who often crashed there, it became an early version of "Friends" -- hours of talk and laughter, as we all transitioned from kids to grown ups.

Sandy Z became an engineer and moved to Cleveland and then Virginia with her husband, a man she met through another Building Z man, Ed. She had 2 beautiful daughters, right around D2's age, and we keep up on FaceBook.  Edee got her doctorate in Neuroscience and PT, and ended up on UM's faculty for many years -- marrying later, with now one college freshman son -- and a few years ago left for Atlanta to take a prestigious scientific directorship of a major spinal cord rehab hospital.

Sandy VD got her business degree, and married Jim, her high school sweetheart, who followed her to Miami. She was a realtor in Miami for years, and, after her mother died, moved back to PA to be close to Jim's family. She has a daughter who graduated from SMU a few years back, and lives with her parents, or close to them.

To give an idea of how close we all were, I performed Sandy VD and Edee's weddings -- I became a Florida notary to do it. Sandy Z opted for a minister. Not sure about Tere.

Anyway, Tere went to med school in Tampa, and then residency in NYC. I saw her there on a few visits, but then she became a radiologist in San Diego, where she met her husband, who worked at her hospital. They married, and have had a lovely life -- three kids, the oldest of whom is starting grad school in DC, the middle one a student at Sonoma State, and the youngest, their only son, a rising high school senior. Tere and I keep up on Instagram, and I invited her to a happy hour with our old group. On Wednesday, she clicked in.

She met Barry's 2 sons, and Eric's son. Kenny was there, and he and Tere had met, coincidentally, when they both worked as shadow merchants in San Diego, and realized the Miami connection. Barry clicked on later, on his way home from work at Jackson.

It was lovely to catch up. Tere commented on losing both her parents, who we knew -- her Mom a really tough death to Alzheimer's. She noted that leaving this planet is awful, unless you are lucky enough to go suddenly. I reminded her that was my Dad's exit -- but at 63, which sucked, too.

She'd like to get out of Southern Cal, with its absurd cost of living, and maybe relocate to Oregon or Washington State. I guess an issue will be her husband's aging parents.

But we reminisced, and talked about the virus. Dana made a cameo, and they smiled at seeing each other after all these decades. It was a lovely, lovely Zoom.

Last night, my friend Jeff from Chicago put together a Zoom of high school friends. Kenny wanted in -- he's not on FaceBook, and so doesn't get to keep up with many of these folks.

There were 18 of us on, and Jeff moderated at first, having some go around and telling what their lives were like. One woman, Lisa, said her husband and son died withing the same year. Another talked of illness, too.

Most of the group had known each other since grade school -- there were only three of us from the neighboring school, East Broadway. Still -- it was great to hear the classic B and T accents of my youth -- a mix of "The Nanny" and "Sopranos."

After about an hour, the tales of the different lives started to run together in my mind. I speak to Chicago Jeff about once a year -- he comes to Boca to visit his one surviving in law, and we get together to watch a college basketball game -- he's a big Duke fan, and if they're playing in Coral Gables, he gets very excited.

But as for the others -- nice enough people -- but my interest waned. Which had retired from law? Did someone live in the Caymans? Most were still tri state people...

So my computer froze, and I took that as a sign to beg off the meeting. I got a text that they went on for another hour, and made plans to keep it a weekly thing. Not for me -- my high school curiosity is satisfied by FaceBook -- and so that'll be it for me. Now if I can just figure out how to get taken off the group texts that set these things up...

It was a week of looking to the past. I guess it makes sense -- the virus is surging, and the present is pretty filled with tension and anxiety.  The future of the pandemic is looking more and more like it's just going to have to ride its course -- before we develop the holy grail of herd immunity. It'll take a lot of deaths and misery to get there -- just like the 1918 flu pandemic.

I came home from a walk, where Barry and I spoke. He said things are pretty serious at his hospital -- the biggest in the Southeast. They're seeing younger patients, who tend to recover better, but will clearly infect their older family members, who don't do so well.  A lot of people are "over the whole thing," but the virus isn't over them. Scary times, indeed.

Much scarier than my high school and college years.