Fifty Years of Friendship (And Then Some)

Old friends are one of life's great treasures. Let me explain.

You probably didn’t expect to be reading about kindergarten in Coffey Grounds today. That makes two of us, because I didn’t expect to be writing about it. I mean, c’mon, it was 65 years ago. What could I possibly pull out of Manor Plains School in Huntington, LI, that would have any relevance today?

And yet here I am, spending an autumn afternoon doing just that. One perk of this kind of writing is you don’t know where it might take you, and what memories it might bubble up.

My kindergarten teacher was Mrs. Klaffky. She was kind and nurturing, someone who made learning fun and maintained order without raising her voice. One day she took us outside after a heavy snowfall. We didn’t make a snowman; we made a snow boat. The whole class pitched in, mounding up snow from bow to stern. We all climbed in.

“Who wants to be the captain?” Mrs. Klaffky asked. Everyone’s hand shot up. You could hear a squeaky chorus of “Me! Me! Me!” all over the little fenced-in playground. Mrs. Klaffky waited a moment and then pointed . . . at me.

“Wayne, why don’t you be our captain?”

I couldn’t believe it. This was almost as good as getting Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford in the same pack of baseball cards. I moved to the front of the boat and took control of the make-believe steering wheel, and felt like, well, the captain of the ship (the SS Klaffky?). It was the most unforgettable moment of my kindergarten year, until The Day I Got In Big Trouble.

It was a typical morning in class, clusters of us working at separate tables on an arts and crafts project. I guess I was a bit rambunctious, because Mrs. Klaffky told me several times to quiet down. I did not quiet down. Mrs. Klaffky sent me to sit in the corner by myself for a few minutes.

In the corner, I found some crayons on a nearby shelf. I was bored, so I began to scribble things on the floor and the walls behind me. After a few minutes, Mrs. Klaffky came over and saw my handiwork. She was as angry as I’d ever seen her.

“What got into you, Wayne?” she said. “Look at what you’ve done!”  I started to cry. Mrs. Klaffky marched me straight to the principal’s office. She held my hand as we walked. It was a slow trip because I made my body as limp as a noodle, so Mrs. Klaffky basically had to drag me. She escorted me into the office of Mrs. Moyka, the principal. Now I was crying even harder. Mrs. Moyka was an older woman who always seemed to be in a cranky mood. When I arrived she was especially cranky. Mrs. Moyka asked if I could explain my actions.

“I forgot the rule about not writing on the walls and floor,” I said. I thought it was a solid answer, given the stressful circumstances. Mrs. Moyka didn’t agree.

“That’s something a baby would do,” she said.

Mrs. Klaffky marched me back to class. I don’t remember much about the rest of the day, but I do remember a bunch about my classmates, and that is really my main purpose for writing this. It was the 1959-60 school year. My running mates included John Beers, Steven Young and David Hansen. We became fast friends at the age of 5, and that hasn’t changed. Last weekend, in fact, we were back together for a mini-reunion at my wife’s rambling, rustic family retreat in the northern Catskill Mountains, along with Tom Crawford, Lee Moss and Bruce Beighlie, all of whom moved into the school district a bit later. (Bill “Willo” Williams had an excused absence to attend the fourth birthday party of his grandson, Vincent.)  Fifty-two years after graduating from John H. Glenn High School, we and assorted spouses (fact: every one of us overachieved in the marital department) sat together in front of a big stone fireplace, sang songs, embellished stories, talked about kids and grandkids and joked about the ravages of aging. Sleep apnea machines, hearing aids, plantar fasciitis, replacement body parts – all were prominently discussed. Laughter was abundant.

“Why don’t we compare to see who takes the most medications?” Tom said Saturday morning.

We went for a three-mile walk, taking in the foliage and the crisp mountain air. After a long climb up a steep hill, I stopped to tie my shoe.

“You don’t need to tie your shoe,” Steven said. “You just want to stop because you’re out of breath.”

Back at the house, I struggled with three remotes in a futile effort to find the game I was looking for.

“I liked it better when we had 13 channels,” I said. Bruce took over and found the game with a few clicks, and then told me I needed to repeat these words after him, three times, “Technology is my friend. It helps my life every day.” I complied.

Everyone brought food and drink, and pitched in to help. Friendly competition developed over who had what time slot in the coveted outdoor shower, the newest feature in a 140-year-old house. There were tales from our classrooms and corridors, and about the seminal event of our high-school years, namely The Walkout, when hundreds of us left school to march on the Little Red Schoolhouse, office of the district superintendent. We weren’t protesting the war in Vietnam or calling for sweeping social change; we wanted to be able to go to McDonald’s for lunch. The Administration told us if we didn’t get our entitled butts back in school, this protest would go on our permanent record and jeopardize getting into college. Mrs. Willo (that’s really what we called her) found out about the march and drove to Elwood Rd., our protest route, and hauled Willo into her car.  Most of us wanted to avoid trouble and caved. We were good students but terrible activists.

Sixth-grade versions of ourselves

One of the nice things about lifelong friendship is that you can almost speak in shorthand. There’s no need to fill in blanks or set scenes, because we were all there. The stories covered a lot of territory. In sixth grade, a classmate who had a propensity for picking his nose was caught in the act, prompting our teacher, Mrs. Kock (fortunately, it was pronounced Cook), to say, loudly and in front of the entire class, “If you are hungry, go to the cafeteria.” In 10^th grade, a substitute biology teacher wrote an inaccurate equation for Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) on the blackboard. “That’s not right,” said Willo, who was bound for MIT and medical school. He corrected her mistake. The class erupted in laughter, the substitute not so much.

In Mr. Keen’s 11^th-grade English class, we were assigned to write a poem. John recalled that a kid named Rudy Hagins wrote down the lyrics of “Just My Imagination” by The Temptations and submitted it.

“He got an A,” John said.

Tom, who would’ve elected Class Wiseass if there had been such a category, had a troubling first encounter with our new gym teacher. His name was Mr. Lilienthal. He had the body of an offensive lineman and a head as thick as a cinder block.  Taking attendance the first day, Mr. Lilienthal spoke our names haltingly as he called them, pausing between the first and last names:

“John . . . Abatangelo.”

“Tom . . . Bartow.”

“Robert . . . Buckley.”

When he got to the Cs, he said, “Tom . . . Crawford.”

Tom replied with precisely the same pause as Mr. Lilienthal:

“I’m . . . here.”

Mr. Lilienthal was not amused, and was even less amused minutes later when we were in the locker room. Tom told someone that we should nickname him Mr. Neanderthal, but made this suggestion not knowing that Mr. Lilienthal was standing right behind him. The next sound you heard was Tom Crawford getting slammed into a locker.

 “Youse and me are going to lock horns,” Mr. Lilienthal said.

And he was right. They did.

There were fond memories shared about Mr. Lawton, the dedicated band director, whose unzipped fly was parodied by John in a memorable skit in the Senior Variety Show, and the driver ed teacher, Mr. Milch, who had a habit of routing student drivers to stores where he had errands to run. Several of us mused about the arrival of Miss Heisler, an attractive young English teacher who had teenage hormones raging all over Elwood.

After dinner, we piled fresh logs on the fire. Steven, Tom and Lee broke out their guitars. They played (and sang) “Helplessly Hoping,” “Hallelujah,” “You Ain’t Going Nowhere” and “Father and Son,” among other tunes. John, who can play any instrument and is still the first trombone player for the Farmington Valley Symphony , sat down at the piano in an adjoining room and played a few songs by ear.  The music was sweet and nourishing. We played a trivia game about the 60s, 70s and 80s, boys vs. girls. The girls won. Nobody was on their phones.

“We had a lot of good teachers,” Lee said. He mentioned Mr. Lawton and Mr. Filangeri, a music instructor, and then we started naming some of our favorites, including Mr. Levy, Mrs. Phillips, Mr. Kaplan and Mrs. Tobin. We stayed up late and the hours flew by. I took the 12:30 am slot in the outdoor shower. It was raining a little. It didn’t matter. It was all water.

Mr. Ted Levy, an all-time great teacher and Class of ‘72 faculty advisor

On Sunday morning, John’s wife, Susan, made sure nobody went hungry, providing a sumptuous breakfast (French toast, bacon and egg casserole, sausage and egg sandwiches and pumpkin muffins) that was as delicious as it was caloric. Soon it was time to say goodbye. David headed back to Oklahoma, Bruce to Maryland, Steven and Margie to Pennsylvania, Lee and Holly to New Hampshire, John and Susan to Connecticut, Tom and Ellen to Long Island. Sometimes, you plan these sorts of get-togethers and things don’t quite meet your expectations. Life happens. Moods happen. Your glad you are together, but something seems a bit off, like a guitar that needs tuning.

This particular reunion was, well, just about perfect – light, harmonious, rich with shared history, the kind that can make decades disappear. We decided we would do it again next year, but maybe a weekend earlier, so we don’t conflict with Vincent’s 5^th birthday and Willo and his wife Lorraine can join us. I doubt Mrs. Klaffky has any idea what she started.