Mullings An American Cyber Column By Rich Galen

�

Click here for the Secret Decoder Ring to this issue!

Pals

Rich Galen

Monday March 21, 2011

Click here for an Easy Print Version

From Delray Beach, Florida

We met when we were at the dawn of our adulthood. We were freshmen together at Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio 45750. We were among the last students accepted so we were on the top floor in the oldest men's dorm.

Seventeen-year-old kids with no idea what the world had in store for us or itself in 1964.

We joined the same fraternity - Tau Kappa Epsilon - we got rushed together, pledged together, and became actives in what, in retrospect, were the childish rituals of a secret society. These were the days when the "Greek System" was in its heyday. At our little school there were, as I remember six fraternities and six sororities.

I got invited to a lot of parties because I would bring my guitar - much like that guy playing on the steps of the Delta house in "Animal House."

When I found out that they didn't call your mother if you didn't go to school; I didn't. I became a really, really good guitar player while I was becoming a really, really bad student.

So bad, in fact, that at the end of the first semester of our sophomore year when the Committee on Academic Standing determined that my academic standing was not what they were looking for in a full-time student, I was invited to leave.

The other three went straight through, but we kept in touch during my two-year exile and when it ended, I returned to Marietta as a second-semester sophomore. They were second-semester seniors.

Two of the three went off to do their military service; I had joined the Army National Guard, one was an army draftee, and another was an Air Force officer. The other had a medical issue and was exempt. None of us saw service in Vietnam, but none of us evaded service.

Four kids thrown together by fate who got into all the usual trouble that the worst students were likely to get into in their freshman year. During this weekend we established that between us we were on every form of probation Marietta College offered.

In 1964 the world was a different place than it is now. John Kennedy's assassination was still a national open wound. His brother Bobby had about four years to live, only two months longer than Dr. Martin Luther King. The Vietnam war would drag on for another had another 11 years to run its course, and the country looked as if it were coming apart at its racial, economic, social, and geographic seams.

We made it through Marietta College; through our military experiences; got married; had kids, started careers - except for me. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do when I grow up.

Two of them are in the insurance business. One is in medical equipment sales. All have done well.

This weekend we shared old stories, oft-told, that still felt good like a well-washed t-shirt on a summer Sunday morning.

Other stories were new, but told with the same familiar New York, Connecticut, Maryland, and Wisconsin accents. We caught up on how our kids are doing and, to our mutual shock, shared pictures and stories of grandchildren. I made them look at all the pictures of my granddaughter.

We talked about the pros and cons of the Libyan adventure, and the cons of the health-care system in America. One of the guys has sold health insurance to large firms for all of his adult life so we listened to him.

Four guys with different personalities and different skill sets. I can't remember ever competing against one another. We have fit well together because of, not in spite of, our differences.

When we were freshmen in 1964 looking at four men who are aged 64 we would have thought they were in the twilight of their lives. Given the state of nutrition, medical technology and genes, it is only late afternoon.

As happens with men of a certain age, we spent a great deal of time either eating, or talking about where to go for our next meal. The point is, this weekend would not make a good book nor a good movie.

There was no drama; no solutions for long-unresolved issues.

Like this column, if you don't happened to be one of the four of us, these three days could only be described as dull.

Pals. Four pals. I couldn't have asked for a better weekend.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to the Assassinations of John & Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King and the Wikipedia entry for the Vietnam war.

Also a photo from the beach at Ft. Lauderdale and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

Become a
Paid Mullings Subscriber!

(To join the FREE mailing list or to unsubscribe Click Here)

Current Issue | Secret Decoder Ring | Past Issues | Email Rich | Rich Who?