Back to the present

Almost 50 years later, I got a taste of high school, and I enjoyed the visit

I think there are basically two kinds of people in the world: Those who more or less liked high school and those who, for a lot of good reasons, just survived it and would do anything rather than go back, including having dinner with Doug Ford.

I’m happy to say I was lucky to be in the former camp and actually had a pretty good time in high school — at least the parts I can remember. And the reason was that I was fortunate enough to make some good friends. High school without friends is a bit like being in prison without a crew, except it’s more violent and the food is worse. (I’m not sure what dietitian decided french fries and Jos Louis cakes were part of a healthy diet, but I bet she was secretly employed by the people who invented elastic-waistband sweat pants.)

When we moved back to Hamilton from Ottawa and up to the west Mountain, our parents expected us to be good Catholic boys and go to Cathedral. But my brother and I thought a 15-minute walk looked better than two buses every morning — especially in the winter.

So that’s how I found myself at Westmount in Grade 10 not knowing a single person there and within a few days still did not know anyone and was eating lunch in a bathroom stall. I’m kidding. I fell in with a table of guys who, oddly enough, all turned out to be Catholic, except for Ron whose parents came from Holland where people worship wooden shoes and Gouda the Cheese God.

To be honest, we were bonded by something more important than religion: Our shared layered haircut, then known as “the Shag.” This was a hairstyle favoured by rock bands and the women on the TV show “Charlie’s Angels” so of course it was a perfect fit for 16-year-old boys.

The second group of friends I made was through basketball. This is ironic because I am a terrible basketball player and really only joined the team because they had these terrific blue shorts at the time. The shorts, combined with the shag haircut gave me a kind of skinny Richard Simmons look that was the envy of absolutely no one.

I know that because I recently had beers with several members of the team and they reminded me that A. no one knew whether I could actually play basketball because I never got on the court and B. I looked like a girl in my uniform.

Though we had not seen much of each other in decades, we decided to get together a few years ago, when one team member, Dennis, was regularly coming back from Calgary to visit his aging mom. I’m usually pretty wary of digging up the past — it’s never quite what you think it was and, except for wine and IBM stocks, most things don’t improve with age. But this time I was wrong.

It was great to see Dennis and Henry, who besides being good b-ball players, had been vice-president and president of the school; Wayne, our centre, the biggest guy I had ever seen in real life and arguably the best basketball player in the city in those years, and Alex, who played both point guard in basketball and quarterback in football and seems to remember every classmate without the aid of a yearbook. Add in Cesare, who played forward and Ron, who we let join us even though he played soccer — and you have the group.

We’ve met a few times now — whenever Dennis is in town — and several things have become clear.

No matter how old you are and what position you hold, you never outgrow your high school nickname. So, the conversation was filled with “Crash,” “Newtie,” “Duke” — and (I’m not kidding) those were the teachers!

You laugh as much as you did back then. The beer is way more expensive.

Finally, I don’t think I would like to go back to high school, but it’s sure fun to visit now and then.