Hard core readers of this blog will remember that back in June I posted a story about getting a fist fight with another boy in 4th grade. I like to tell this story and I’ve told it several times over the years. It’s a good story with a teachable twist.
After the fight happened my friend Steve’s dad did something odd to put us back together. He took us out to a movie, Rocky IV. I’ve often wondered why his dad did that and a few weeks ago I finally sent his dad an e-mail to ask him why he had done it.
He wrote, “I guess I figured if I forced you guys into a situation where you had to be civil to one another, and maybe even enjoy something together, that you would feel pretty foolish if you started fighting again. I also wanted you to know that I, as an adult, would be watching your relationship and that I had strong feelings about you getting along. Letting down yourselves by quarreling again would be one thing; letting me down, too, would be another.Maybe, too, I was trying to show you that I believed you both were good guys and that you should see the good in each other, too.”
That about summed it up for me. It was about what I had always thoguht he had meant by it. I know that I was secretly hoping that there was this extreme case of religious ferver that he had wanted to get a point across to me… yada yada yada. It just wasn’t the case and I’m cool with that.
But the story that ended back in 4th grade was resurrected. It turns out that Steve’s dad still writes for the South Bend Tribune, my hometown newspaper. Even stranger are two central facts. First of all, Steve’s dad wrote about this incident in an article in Sunday’s Tribune. Second, it’s been very cool to reconnect with Steve as we’ve exchanged a few e-mails about it last week.
After the story back in 4th grade, I can’t really remember if Steve and I remained friends. I do know that I moved away that summer and by the time we reconnected in middle school and high school homerooms, we were never close again. (I’m sure most people can identify with this type of “loss.”)
So it’s been intruiging that what was once “just a PA story” now has some more meaning to me. I have loved getting reconnected… even for a fleeting minute. They say you can never go home again, but in my memory… it’s good to chase down some of those lose ends.
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