At the time, my brother and I were more upset about leaving our friends on the weekends than my parents divorcing. That didn't particularly bother us. They'd been fighting for as long as we could remember. The divorce was undoubtedly their best hope of not sustaining a major injury, and my brother and I seriously needed some peace and quiet. Under normal circumstances, five blocks wouldn't have been that much of a barrier between friends, but close to my mother's home, and separating the communities, was a woods. It could be negotiated but it was a pain to do so, and we lacked the ambition for the trek. So Jimmy, Ben, Jon, Denny, Bob, Charlie, Junior, V.J., and the rest of our neighborhood gang were sadly left behind. It took us about five minutes to make new friends on that side of the woods. It didn't take long because, for some odd reason, there weren't as many kids over there. Maybe it was because it was a more established neighborhood and the kids were older than us. Our new found friends couldn't explain it either, they were just grateful for new playmates. Because it was an older neighborhood, there were plenty of trees and bushes to provide hiding places for games and mischief. The nearby woods also provided some nice sledding trails in the winter and a place to get lost in during the warmer months. Eventually, as we got older, the guys from both communities got together and formed one big, constantly revolving, gang. For the most part, everybody got along fine. My brother Steve and I felt good that we were the catalyst that brought all of us together. We were now able to play baseball with not only a catcher but a right and center fielder, and tackle football was much more enjoyable with the cushion the extra bodies provided. Our gang lasted in its entirety until the summer of '66, when the draft, summer jobs and steady girlfriends came into the picture. Then, for some of us, came college, full time employment and, of course, marriage.
Most of our gang still managed to get together for parties and special occasions throughout the late sixties and seventies. Some of us even stayed close into the early nineties. By the late '60s, the last of us had moved out of Northwood. It was a great place to grow up, but didn't have a lot to offer us as adults. That's the way of things. What you cherish as a boy, what you crave as a teenager, becomes trivial as you age. The magic is lost in the dust of the years.
Ben, one of our original friends moved to South Carolina in 1991. My wife and I visited him and his family in 1993. He passed away on June 23rd, 2000 of cancer. My brother and I were pallbearers at his funeral.
 In May of 1999, we had a small reunion to celebrate my brother Steve's 50th birthday. It was the first time Steve and I had seen our friends in many years.
 Bob moved to Florida in 2004. He passed away on June 4th, 2009. Denny and Jon are still in the area. As is my brother Steve. We still get together on occasion. Jimmy and I, and our wives still see each other from time to time to reminisce. But, as we get older, the get togethers have become more infrequent.
A few years ago, Steve and I went back to Northwood with our wives. We found that much of it looks the same as it did those many years ago. But there was something missing. Perhaps the ghosts of our youth simply tired of being young and moved to a more fertile ground. Northwood now feels like a dream that thinks it's real. It's sad in a way, but it won't keep me from going back there from time to time. Northwood haunts me in the way a perfect memory should. It will always be part of my life. |
