Back in the day

One of the highlights of our recent trip to America for me personally was getting the chance to spend an evening with four friends from high school. A couple of them I had known since Jr. High really.

The boys, we were inseparable at times. Uncontrollable at other times. But always there for each other if need be.

I was so glad to hear that the other four had carved some time out of their busy lives to spend an evening together. We only had one possible night to make it happen and they all flexed. Thanks guys, you will never know how much that night meant to me.

My wife had met a couple of the guys, but one in particular I had not seen in nearly 13 years. Even before we arrived at the host house I was beginning to recount stories and imagining how some of them might have changed. Even though we all graduated from high school together, we had kids ranging in ages from 16 all the way down to 6 weeks. My how our lives had turned out differently. As we approached the door, I told my wife I should time how long it would take before the infamous “Kevin flying out of the back of a moving truck” incident would come up.

Three minutes. That’s all it took.

The story goes like this (highly condensed version):
We were out raising trouble, or trying to anyways, having fun like most young men want to on a Friday night. I, in my brand new white goose-down ski jacket that my mom had just bought me the day before after much begging on my part, found myself in the back of a pickup going down a steep hill, looking over the cab of the truck at a car playing ‘chicken’ with us. Somehow by the grace of God the two drivers swerved enough at the last minute to avoid a collision.

That is when one of our friends, also named Kevin and who was driving, decided he was going after said car that had just nearly cost us our lives. He slammed on the brakes and cranked the wheel of his red 73 Ford pickup around. The resulting motion combined with my standing position and momentum resulted in me flying out of the back of the truck and onto hard pavement.

The next thing I remember was my friends all standing over me while I gasped the kind of gasp where no air is actually going in or out, but your chest is heaving up and down like an elevator. The guys were all standing over me and one of them was saying repeatedly “He’s dead! He’s dead!”

I am pretty sure the first words out of my mouth were “My mom is going to kill me! She spent a lot of money on this coat.”

Turns out that I was fine, literally not a scratch on me. Bruises that would hurt for weeks, yes, but no scratches. And somehow, by God’s grace not even a smudge on the coat.

I wore that coat for two more years.

As the night went on, I looked around the room and saw all of our wives talking at the table. Their lives have been thrown together by this crazy group of men. Our kids, all twelve of them, were playing together throughout the house and having a ball.

We told story after story. One thing that struck me as quite amazing about this night was how similar all of us remembered even the details of the various stories. That told me that those times were not only significant to me, but to them also.

I laughed so hard and so long that night that I left with a headache. But I left with such joy at the chance to see long-time friends and to remember what happened . . .back in the day.