Historical March 1987 report or notice. Original dates, prices and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
The note from my secretary was simple: “Robin Hynes called.
He said it’s important” and was followed by a phone number. “Robin Hynes?” I asked myself. “I only know one Robin Hynes and he’s a guy I went to college with.” I thought about when the last time was that I had spoken with him and, if my memory was right, it was around 1975. “Robin Hynes? Why in the world is he calling me? Maybe it’s not the same Robin Hynes,” I thought. I called the number and, sure enough, it was the same Robin Hynes. “Hi, Tommy,” he said. “I’m sorry to call you so late, but a bunch of us that went to school together are going to meet for dinner and a beer tomorrow night and I thought you’d like to join us.” It was fascinating to hear him talk.
As I said, I hadn’t seen or talked to Robin for over a decade and split-second visions of the fun we had together kept popping through my head during the time he spoke. I remembered Robin on athletic fields — softball, basketball, football — always intent, always good but never as good as he saw himself, and always with stories later that made life seem better than it really was. “What in the world is prompting you to do this?” I asked, still somewhat overwhelmed by the notion. “Oh, I don’t know, I just thought it would be fun,” he said. “You know,” he continued, “some of us still play ball together on Thursday nights — we’re playing indoor softball now – but then there are some people I haven’t seen lately, like you, so I thought, ‘why not?” Perhaps my funniest memory of Robin is around 1971.
A group of us used to meet on Sunday mornings to play what we called “concrete hockey.” We’d play on a space used as a parking lot during the week.
It was behind an insurance agency and under the building so it was covered and, while not well-lit, it served our purpose just fine. We’d divide into teams of three or four and play hockey with a plastic puck; no slap-shots, of course. Anyway, once Robin showed up wearing his old army pants. “Holy cow,” I said, “you’ve been out of the army for six years now and your pants still fit. That’s amazing!” Robin grinned kind of sheepishly and pulled up his sweatshirt.
It seems that instead of having a zipper on the fly of his pants, there were six buttons. Robin was only able to button the bottom one of them.
With his shirt up it was obvious that he had been poured in to his pants and had for- ‘,gotten to say “when!” All of us laughed and laughed over that one. “Well, who all is coming?” I asked. “Oh, the usual, y’know. Jim Schibig, Joe Moehl, Gary Custer, Paul Prifti, Marty Oberman — remember him? — Big Mike and me!” “Big Mike!” I roared and immediately began laughing.
Now Big Mike was a real trip.
He really was BIG Mike, he must’ve been 6’3″ and 240 pounds when I knew him way back in high school.
After football practice, he’d pile eight or nine of us in his car, an old grey and blue Ford, and charge us 25¢ for a ride home. Once, leaving Velvet Freeze after malts and Diet-Rite sodas, we backed into a light standard and from then on the rear bumper and trunk had a huge V-dent. Big Mike could never get the trunk open after that and he blamed the accident for his bad report card.
It seems that several of his textbooks, history and biology for sure, were in the trunk at the time of the accident, so he couldn’t study them after that. “What’s Big Mike doing these days?” I asked. “Beats me,” said Robin. “I have no idea what he’s doing. I’m not sure he knows what he’s doing!” “Well, what are the details about tomorrow night?” I asked, suddenly feeling old and a little awkward. “Simple, we’re meeting at 7 at Gamberiti’s on the Hill. It’s just west of Rigazzi’s — I know you remember Rigazzi’s,” Hynes laughed. “It’ll be fun.” “I’ll try to make it,” I said and hung up the phone.
But I wasn’t at all sure that I would try to make it.
After all, I intentionally avoided all of my high school and college reunions. I always figure that if I haven’t seen people in 10 years, why bother now? No, I thought, this is one that I can miss.
During the day, though, several times I found myself thinking about Schibig and Hynes and Prifti and Big Mike and wondering what they were all doing and what they were like now Schibig, I had just heard, is now a principal in the Mehlville School District. I assumed that Hynes was still selling insurance and I knew that Prifti had formed his own construction company.
And Big Mike? Robin was right, no telling what Big Mike was doing. I remember once, in college, going to a restaurant after a basketball game and sitting next to Schibig. Schibig was the world’s alltime nice guy, but he would get embarrassed rather easily. Somehow I wound up getting everyone, there must have been a dozen of us all sitting at a big table, to pass their unused silverware to me. I managed to stick it in one of the pockets of Jim’s sports coat without him knowing it. Sure enough, the timing was perfect!
We paid the bill and Jim got up to leave with the waiter standing next to him.
The silverware made a clanking noise and some of it began to fall from Jim’s coat.
The waiter heard the noise and looked at Jim, only to see the silverware sticking out of the pocket. Jim reached down to see what it was and all of the rest of the silverware, there must have been 15 pieces, fell onto the floor. Jim got very red in the face, which, of course, only served to further convince the waiter that this was an attempted theft! Only our laughter saved poor Jim. Yeah, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I would like to see these guys. “I’ll go just for a bit,” I thought.
The next day I awakened thinking of the evening meeting and looking forward to it. I caught myself picking out my clothes for the day with the thought that I’d be wearing them for the meeting. That really surprised me. “Why,” I wondered, “should it matter to me how I look tonight?
After all, this is neither a date nor a job interview.” Still, I made sure that my flowered tie went with my checkered shirt and plaid sports coat.
Well, that was a couple of weeks ago. I went and the evening was — how can I put it? – “interesting.” Schibig (who likes being a principal) was there, along with Marty (who owns a cheese distributorship), Gary (who works for Fontbonne), and Joe (who teaches). Prifti didn’t show and neither did Big Mike. Hynes still sells insurance.
While driving over, I wondered what we’d find to talk about.
My hunch was that we’d talk about people and, sure enough, I was right.
The conversation reminded me a bit of the sports trivia shows that you hear on the radio. Only instead of someone saying, “What ever happened to Orlando Cepeda?” we were saying, “What ever happened to Rita Slazinik?” and “Has anyone heard from Jim McCann?” and “Did you know that Carl Seitz and Nancy Warren got divorced and that she married Louie Jonas?” “Not Louie Jonas!” someone would cry, and we’d all laugh, only to be followed with someone else saying, “but that’s o.k., Carl later remarried Phyllis— remember her, the one who always chewed gum? — and has three kids.” It was fun hearing what’s happened to everyone.
There were only a few of us at the dinner, and I couldn’t contribute much, but the rest of the guys were like a walking encyclopedia of trivia about ex-classmates. Someone knew something about everyone mentioned. Unscientific as it may be, there are a couple of generalities that can be made about all of these folks. First; the number that remain married to the original partners is less than the number that are not. I guess I’m getting a bit jaundiced in my old age, but that didn’t surprise me. Heck, I never thought that Carl and Nancy were a good pair. Second, it’s amazing how many people have switched not just jobs, but careers.
Most of these folks started out as teachers, but few are still in education. There’s a message here! Third, talking about the experiences and reliving old victories and defeats, on and off the athletic field, is a lot more fun than actually experiencing them was in real life. Hynes is a great storyteller and he can make everything a good memory.
His great tales almost make up for his lack of validity: the girls weren’t that cute and he certainly wasn’t that great of an athlete, and I really didn’t cut that many classes, but he’s fun to hear.
Finally, I was struck with how easy and comfortable I felt with these guys after ten to fifteen years.
It was as if we hadn’t talked for a month, not a decade. Maybe it’s because we had been so close, but we didn’t posture or try to impress one another. Kind of sad, though, we also didn’t talk at all about the present, the future, or how we think about “things,” like what we think about life.
Our conversation was limited to retelling old stories that we all liked and gossiping about the other actors in our sagas.
The evening went by fairly quickly and as we left, Robin said, “This was fun. Let’s try to do it in a month or so. I’ll give you a call.” “Sure,” I responded. “Let me know.” But I’m really not sure that I’ll attend.
In a way it was more — and less — than I expected. I wonder if anyone else picked out their clothes that morning?
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, March 1987.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1987_03.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
