One of my favorite poems is this one by Donald Justice:
“On the Death of Friends in Childhood”
We shall not ever meet them bearded in heaven,
Nor sunning themselves among the bald in hell;
If anywhere, in the deserted schoolyard at twilight,
Forming a ring, perhaps, or joining hands
In games whose very name we have forgotten,
Come, memory, let us seek them there in the shadows.
It’s not that I’m being morbid. I like the basic concept Justice is presenting here: the last time we see someone is the image of that person that is burned into our memory and the way we remember them until we meet them again. I like that.
This is something I’ve thought of often since I’ve been a facebook user. Most of my “friends” are high school or college classmates or former students. I’ve been out of high school since 1968, college (undergrad) since 1972, and I’ve been a teacher for 40 years. Some of my former students are grandparents! I have not seen most of these people in just about that length of time. The pictures I have of them in the yearbooks of my memory are images of those last encounters.
My alma mater folded in 1992. The alumni organization is quite strong, and we have a reunion at the end of June each year. My fraternity brothers and I started getting together in that little town a few years ago, and now I have a pretty good catalog of gray-haired fraternity “boys” and former classmates. We get together and reminisce (we can tell the same stories to one another every year since none of us can remember the truth for 12 months!) and show pictures of our grandkids.
Social networking is another matter. It’s always interesting to get a new “friend” request. I’ve made it a practice only to accept requests from former students (not current ones). Those who graduate in May and ask to “friend” me in June typically end up asking me to proofread college essays or write more recommendations for a year or so, and then I don’t hear from them for a long time.
My high school classmates and students from 25-40 years ago are another story. Some of them are still in the vicinity, like I am. I have run into a few at different venues, especially those folk who like my son’s music. It’s fun to experience that “Aha!” moment when one or the other of us comes to recognition. Usually people remember me. Not because I am so memorable but that I can’t remember until someone reminds me!
The facebook requests from these older students are the fun ones. Many people use current pictures of themselves as their Homepage icons. Some don’t. Now and then I have to look at their pages to check hometowns to see if they are former students or classmates. The women present another problem. If they use their married names instead of their maiden names, I have no idea who they are! You can’t pay me enough to talk about those photos!
One of my fraternity brothers made an interesting observation a few weeks ago. He took an unofficial poll (of his facebook friends) and noticed that most of the men post their pictures. The women use shots of their children, grandchildren, pets, or favorite quotations, etc. He took some heat for it, but I think he’s probably right.
Does that mean the women are more vain than the men? I’m not going there, either.
Actually, I think it’s terrific that so many of those 60+ classmates and “younger” students of mine are cruising the Net. We’ve had some fun re-discovering one another. No, it’s not always what I want to know (I don’t like cats, and I don’t discuss politics or religion with anyone), and I don’t play computer games of any kind, but it’s still interesting to see where people have gone both geographically and personally in their lives.
Most of the time it makes me feel pretty ordinary…and comparatively (sometimes) that’s just fine with me! When I stop and honestly consider who I was so long ago, I’d just as soon they got a more current picture than the one with which I left them. They may not meet me “bearded in heaven” someday, and despite my hair loss, I hope we don’t renew our acquaintance in hell!
