Whodathunkit

It’s not easy making friends when you move from state to state, school to school so many times it makes your head spin. That was my life until we moved to Philly halfway through second grade. By this time I’d grown into a rebellious, stubborn little brat.

Things changed a bit when my folks decided to enroll my brother and me in St. Matthias Catholic school for the upcoming school year. We weren’t necessarily a religious family, and I certainly came off as the devil’s incarnate when it came to forcing my young self into changes in which I had no say, but our parents thought we’d receive a better education at parochial school. Thankfully, the kids at St. Matthias were more accepting of newcomers than anywhere else I’d lived in my vacillating eight years on this Earth. So were the kids in our neighborhood, most of whom also attended St. Matthias.

My brother and I quickly made friends in our new setting. It was always easier for my brother because he was three-and-a-half years younger than I and hadn’t planted the seed of defiance in his psyche. I, on the other hand, was an imp through and through. Despite my initial shyness and overall bad attitude, several girls at our new school reached out and drew me into the fold. It felt good to no longer be the outcast. My icy façade slowly began to melt when I realized that I had real friends for the first time in my life.

But the rebel in me wasn’t far below the surface. I began questioning the nuns during religion class (“But, Sister, wasn’t opium rampant back in those days? Wouldn’t that explain the Tongues of Fire?”) and they didn’t like that one bit. I constantly got my hair pulled for talking in the cloakroom (a mortal sin in Catholic school) and knuckles rapped with a ruler by the ornery monastics, enrobed in attire as plutonian as their demeanor, for questioning the Bible. I became somewhat of a superstar to the more rambunctious kids in class for having the kahunas to defy the nuns which furthered their acceptance of me. Soon I had a tight circle of friends and started to feel at home in my new school, which was situated in a wealthy suburb right over the city line from our modest Philly neighborhood of row houses.

Eventually, my parents allowed me to go over to my friends’ houses on weekends. Most of them lived in mansion-sized homes on the other side of the city limit in the suburban town in which St. Matthias was located. Because it was so close I was allowed to walk there, although many times my brother was sent along to “chaperone” me because our parents didn’t fully trust my motives for wanting to spend time with my friends. We were a small family compared to those of my comrades. It was just me and my brother until my sister was born when I was ten. On the other hand, most of my Catholic school friends were one of fourteen and sixteen (thus the need for the huge homes they lived in). I came to surmise that, while Catholics don’t advocate using birth control, they obviously believe in the act of procreation (having sex). How else does a family become the size of an expanded basketball team?

Please excuse my naughty little side-step. I’ll get back to my story now.

I loved my new life. Whether playing basketball, pitching pennies (which we’d do behind the rectory during recess), gathering a group of us to go sledding, climbing trees, listening to records, playing pool, or gossiping about boys, having friends and confidants gave me a sense of security and belonging. Plus it was the 1960s. The music was great, parents all looked out for the neighborhood kids, and we were allowed more freedom because the times were simpler than they are now. I was a good student who aced all my classes and actually enjoyed doing homework, so Mom and Dad were a little more lenient with me than they’d been in the past. A huge benefit of attending Catholic school, in my eyes, besides the excellent academic education we received, was that we didn’t have to change schools, at least not until ninth grade. Then the girls went on to an all-girls Catholic high school and the boys moved on to one solely dedicated to boys. I’m not sure how parochial schools operate now in the 2000s, but St. Matthias served to educate children from kindergarten through eighth grade. I guess the archdiocese didn’t feel the need to separate boys from girls until nature took its course and set hormones into action—at least beyond the kissy-face sessions we’d sneak in!

Life was rolling along as smooth as an Esther Williams performance until, BAM! My parents hit me with a bombshell just before my eight grade graduation. My dad, who was a stock broker with a small brokerage firm in Philly, was offered a position with the prestigious E.F. Hutton in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. New Jersey! Shit, we were moving again! Just when I got comfortable and was loving life, my world got thrown upside down. I was pissed, sad, and so were my friends. What’s worse is I didn’t see it coming. My folks had just enrolled me in Sacred Heart Academy and purchased uniforms specific to Sacred Heart for the impending high school phase of my parochial education. So, I was completely blindsided when it was announced that we would be moving at the end of the summer, just before school was to begin in September. Even worse—I’d be going to public high school where I knew not a single soul!

Fortunately, my brother and I were allowed to finish out the school year, but I was still angrier than a hornet’s nest. Neither his nor my friends were happy about us moving, but we had no say in the matter.

My best friend, Alice, decided to throw a going-away party for me and scheduled it for a few weeks before we were set to make the trek across the Delaware river. It would be the last time I’d feel the love and camaraderie that I’d grown to depend upon over the past five years. I was furious with my parents for pulling me away from the one thing I’d yearned for all my life: true friendship. This hurt even more because I was being torn from many friendships, plural.

Alice’s house was massive. She was one of sixteen children, so it had to be in order for the family to have enough space to live comfortably. The basement of the McGettigan house was finished, as were most basements in the area, including ours. The entire lower floor was furnished. Roomy sofas, cushy easy chairs, a refrigerator full of snacks and drinks, and a stand-alone freezer provided coziness and convenience on one side of the expansive wooden-paneled room. A jukebox, fully loaded with 45s, and a large area for dancing provided entertainment on the far side of the basement. It was the perfect setup for a teenage party. All of my friends from St. Matthias were there: Alice, Meg, Therese, Eleanor, Margaret Mary, Bernie, TJ (on whom I had a major crush) and some of the other kids from class. But the aforementioned are the ones I hung with the most, so I was thrilled to have them there for one last hoorah.

We partied for a couple of hours, dancing, munching on snacks, and generally having a great time. The boys were sent home at 10:00 and the girls went up to Alice’s bedroom to have a slumber party. We sat in a circle on the beige plushily carpeted floor listening to music, gossiping, giggling, and reminiscing. Not too long before “lights out”, Alice presented me with a gift that she and the other girls had collaboratively made. It was a scrapbook commemorating the fun times we’d had over the years. Flipping through the pages, I was filled with not only sadness, but pride, and joy. And leave it to Alice to throw some hilarity into the mix! Taped to each page was some form of memorabilia from the times we spent together and antics we shared over the years. One page held a copy of a short story I’d written in sixth grade. Our teacher challenged us to write a story based on the popular TV series, Dragnet, incorporating a sneaker, garbage can, and dollar bill as the main characters. I got an A on that story and was pleased that Alice snatched a copy from the teacher to include in the scrapbook of memories. Other pages sported 45s of some of my favorite songs: “Crimson and Clover”, “Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog”, which was reminiscent of the time she, Meg, and I snuck down the shore (up North you don’t go to the beach, you go down the shore) to stay at Meg’s family summer home for the weekend (we told our parents Meg’s folks would be there, too), “These Eyes”, “Dance to the Music”, and “Hang On Sloopy”, among others. Right smack dab in the middle, affixed to the left and right pages was a training bra I’d given Alice for her birthday when we were in sixth grade. It was embarrassing to see it pop open before my eyes, but hilarious as hell. The last few pages contained hand-written notes from my besties. To this day, it’s the best gift I’ve ever received.

Seven Years and 1100-Plus Miles Later

After graduating high school, I left home. High school was not pleasant for me. I was never accepted because not only was I an outsider, but I was smart. (Was it my fault I’d learned how to diagram a sentence, and had already been taught algebra and geometry in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades?) I desperately wanted to get out on my own so I could make my own life decisions and not have them forced on me. A year-and-a-half after I left home, I moved to South Florida, which my parents had done a year before I decided to escape the Jersey cold.

One Saturday afternoon, as a friend and I were waiting to be seated for lunch at a popular restaurant/lounge on the Intracoastal in Boca Raton, I spotted a ghost from my past. We were sitting on a bench at the front of the restaurant, and, for some reason, I told him about my earlier life in Philly. That conversation naturally led to my long-ago best friend, Alice. As I was speaking, I looked over at the bench directly across from us and there she sat! Alice! Holy Shit! I hadn’t seen her since 1970. If Sister George had heard my undignified exclamation she surely would have pulled my waist-length hair while screeching, Giirrll! and whip a ruler out from the pocket of her penguinesque frock to slap me on my knuckles. Nevertheless, I was so taken aback by seeing Alice all these years—and miles—later, that I didn’t even make a move to make sure it really was her. She left the restaurant just as my friend and I were escorted to a table on the patio. After ordering drinks my companion asked me why I hadn’t spoken to her, and I had no good answer. I guess I was just too dumbfounded to find the words—or the gumption—to confirm that I wasn’t hallucinating. I mean, what are the odds that Alice and I would end up in the same restaurant many miles, years, and states later?

***

A few weeks after that incident, I was in a bar on Las Olas Boulevard in Ft. Lauderdale. I struck up a conversation with the man sitting next to me, who happened to be visiting from France. I had taken French all four years of high school and consistently received straight As. Naturally, I wanted to see how much of the language I remembered, so we spoke in his native tongue for much of the exchange. As we were talking, I looked across the bar and, you may not believe this, but there she was again! Alice was in this non-descript bar by herself, as was I. This time she noticed me, too.

“Holy fuckin’ merde!” (translation: holy fucking shit!)

Startled, my companion responded,“Quoi? Que voyez-vous?” (What? What do you see?)

In English I relayed the story about my first coincidental sighting of Alice and motioned over to where she was standing. I excused myself and walked over to her to make sure I really was seeing who I thought I was seeing. Sure enough, it was Alice, my childhood best friend! We hugged just like old times, and I invited her to join me on the other side of the bar. I introduced Alice to my French friend (whose name escapes me now) and the three of us tried our best at carrying on a conversation in his native language. Turns out Alice took French in high school as well! Different high schools in different states, hers parochial, mine public. And we still had something in common after all these years.

Three crazy coincidences over the course of a few weeks, all involving my best friend from a lifetime ago. Incredible!

Whodathunkit?