On Friendship (part 1)

I have decided to write on a more serious topic of friendship, what friends have meant to me through the years, and just my generally feelings on the subject of friends and making friends. These are mostly my thoughts or ideas that were spawned through conversations with others, mainly t. These are maybe better described as essays (although I am very out of practice in the art of essay writing), and these definitely more thought out than my usual ramblings (but not nearly coherent enough). Part 1 will be about childhood friends…

“I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?”

The above quote is from Stand by Me. I always thought it was a very apt description of the friends I had from about 10-14 (especially for a suburban kid with no real problems).

Since I lived kind of far from school I had neighborhood friends and school friends, only occasionally did they overlap. But the dynamics were great. The summers were spent in the neighborhood playing baseball (usually with a tennis ball or wiffle) in the backyard or “The Field” (the local huge open field that seems pathetically small when I revisit nowadays). Playing basketball in nearly any driveway (this was standard in KY, heck I think my brother got his included in his mortgage). Swimming with friends in backyard pools. I know we eventually had Nintendo, but I have little memory of playing those games with friends.

At school, it was a matter of who you ate with at lunch, played games with at recess, and which team you were on for basketball and baseball (although I gave up on that pretty quickly). I was never one of the cool kids, but I had good friends and never experienced the ridicule of being a nerd as depicted in 80’s film.

From my 10^th birthday, I have a picture with my three best friends. There was John from the neighborhood with Brian and Brent from school (we thought we were the Beastie Boys according to Austin D). By the time I was 11 all three had moved far enough away that I could only see them on special trips (very rare when you are that age). I thought at the time that it was going to be horrible.

But getting new friends at that age is easy. One friend moves out, another moves in a few doors down. It’s easy to make new friends at school.

You have sleepovers and your discussions are not that different from the ones in Stand By Me. Who would win in fights of your favorite cartoon characters (Snake Eyes was a badass compared to Storm Shadow)? Favorite baseball (I loved Ozzie Smith, I don’t care how much better a hitter Ryne Sandberg was) and basketball players (no fair, I grew up in the Jordan era, there was only one answer). Starting to notice the girls. Quoting Hot Shots, Airplane, Caddyshack (wait, I still quote these movies religiously). I guess we didn’t wonder down the tracks singing “Lollipop.” But I think it’s amazing how well this movie captures friendship, the feelings at the transition to adolescence, and how kids talk to each other.

There’s an innocence there that is lost with growing up that is captured in that movie. I often wonder about this lost innocence. When is it lost for the poor, the abused, those that have lost loved ones? And when it is lost at a young age, isn’t that a tragedy? I often found some of the stories my mother had from teaching at a downtown Louisville elementary school incredibly depressing. I grew up in a world that was sheltered from problems of drugs and violence. And how does this difference in how people are raised make it difficult for us to relate? (maybe these are questions for another blog, because I’m rambling off subject here)

I have a hard time pinning down what was most important for friends at that age. Proximity was obviously important, and I guess for me, interest in sports, movies. There were kids in the neighborhood that I didn’t really like, and I’m not sure why. Even the friends I still have from that time, the relationship has changed. People grow up, the problems are real, and we now have responsibilities. But at least we still have Hot Shots and the Naked Gun.

NOTE: APB for Brent W and Brian D, have no idea what happened to them.