1972 6th Grade Sports Reunion

I’m 49 years old and most of my friends are guys I’ve know since grade school. I think of buddies I met at college or from my first job as being more recent friends. One of my standard jokes is that I either have lots of long time friends because I’m pretty good at relationships…..or because nobody else will have me.

Like so many boys, my life as a kid revolved around sports. While I played in various leagues, the most fun I had playing sports was with the guys from school. Back in 4th, 5th, or 6th grade, whether it was before Collier Elementary School started, at recess or during lunch hour, there was always a game to be played.

A couple months ago I was talking on the phone to my friend Steve. When I was in 4th grade, Steve used to sit on the seat of my bike while I peddled us from place to place. “Let’s go to Duggan’s” he’d say.  Or “hey, you think anybody is over at Mutter’s house?”  Or “come on, let’s go to Taft High and play basketball.”

During the course of the conversation we had an inspired idea. Since we’d both be turning 50 soon, we should host a sports reunion with our elementary school mates.

Thus began 2 months of searching and preparing for the day when guys from our elementary school grade would once again hang out.

As I thought of the reunion, I realized that to me, the early 1970’s were a special and unique time. Muhammad Ali fought Joe Frazier. Billy Jean King played and beat Bobby Riggs.

The Miami Dolphins had a perfect season and won the Super Bowl. Richard Nixon opened the door to China and the Watergate building was broken into. I believe that to a great extent, the early 1970’s closed the chapter on the post war period and laid the foundation for America as it is today.

The days rapidly passed and the reunion was set for the next day. Would guys really show? What would people look like? Would anybody care about revisiting a time that no longer existed?

Although half a dozen guys couldn’t make the reunion due to scheduling conflicts, at 12:00 on the anointed Saturday, twenty men arrived at Rochin’s private Malibu beach club . A couple guys flew in from San Francisco. Several drove up from San Diego. The prize went to Eric who came down from Seattle.

As soon as we began talking, we started to laugh. We looked at old class pictures. We ate burgers, drank wine from 1972 brought by Andy, and listened to music from that era Doug had burned onto CD’s. Three hours went by as if it were a moment.

Two of the guys, great friends for decades, spoke privately and buried the hatchet regarding a ten year old disagreement that caused an estrangement.

Okay, time to get active. Cones were placed on the beach and an advanced version of Dodgeball was begun. Yikes, Neil is going to throw at my ankles. Darn, Woody just got nailed. Yippie, we just took out Richard. On it went, as if 49 year old guys could pick up a game of Socko as if it were yesterday.

Next came the stories of how times have changed. We spoke of a childhood unlike that of kids growing up today. Jim mentioned how he used to walk himself to kindergarden. The rest of us were appalled. Afterall, I didn’t walk the mile to school by myself until I was 8 years old.

Tom remembered the story of a game we called car chase. One of the dads drove his car around the large culdesac trying to hit the kids of the neighborhood. The kids tried diving out of the way to avoid being killed.

One of the guys recounted when, on the first day of school, his teacher told him he’d receive no higher than a C- in the class due to the terrible behavior of his older sibling. Another of the guys said “you think that’s bad, I got taken into the back and paddled my first day of school because the teacher so hated my three older brothers.”

Finally Grant told the story of when he had a bet with a PE teacher who was a fond of paddling kids for the slightest infraction. My friend bet this teacher he could beat him one-on-one in basketball. The student’s victory gave him two paddles upon the teacher’s backside.

As I laughed myself silly, the call went out to hit the beach and play football. While guys rotated in and out we played 8 men to a side. Most of the guys hadn’t played football for over 30 years. Katz scored the only touchdown.

The time went by as quickly as many of the years seemed to have come and gone. In retrospect, perhaps the thing that stands out the most is that nobody asked “what I did”. It wasn’t so much that a guy who might have been a brain surgeon didn’t want to embarrass someone who might be a janitor.

It was more that it just didn’t matter. Not that people didn’t talk about their kids, or their families, or in many cases their divorce.  But the day was about the past, and how someone earned their living had no impact on the time Mrs. Cassidy got in a fight with that kid named Mark and put him into a headlock.

At one point I reminded my “homie” of the day our 7th grade teacher, sick of my friend’s misbehavior, tossed him into the small coat closet and wouldn’t let him out until the end of the period. He barely remembered that incident.

However, when I refreshed his memory about the teacher, he recited a poem called Congo that he still remembered from that class. Wow I thought, poetry.

And so it was. Over seven hours passed before the first guy left. Finally, as the sun was going down we all shook hands and hugged….the world of 2009 awaited us. However for one brief magical afternoon, it was as if time stood still.

Excerpt from Splendor in the Grass by Walter Whitman

What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be…”