Old Friends

When I was a kid there was a family a few houses away who had a son the same age as me. I'll call him Huey and his parents Homer and Barbie. Our parents knew each other reasonably well. I think they built their houses at a similar time in what was a new land subdivision at the time in the early 60's. We'd play together, have sleepovers, and go to each others birthday parties so I'd say we were fairly close friends, or good mates, as we'd say here. We went to the same primary school but never ended up in the same class. It may be different in other countries, or at other times, but we had classes that were in the same room with the same students and the same teacher for most of the time. Art and sport were the only exceptions. Art was in the art room with the art teacher and sport was usually outside with the PE teacher. PE was referred to as Physical Execution but was meant the be Physical Education. Sometimes PE would combine a few classes so the boys could have a decent game of footy or cricket while the girls played netball or softball. Softball was sort of like baseball but I think with a larger and softer ball. I don't remember doing any other sports during PE other than athletics, which isn't really a sport, is it ? We mostly did star jumps, bur-pees, running, and stuff. Athletics sucked for me. I'm not particularly tall, or strong, or co-ordinated. All I was moderately good at was sprinting in a straight line. I was in the relay team at a sports carnival and I told the teacher not to put me on a bend because I was crap at that. She put me on the bend and I was crap at it.
Back to Huey, the only time I saw him at school was during recess and lunch. There was a short break in the morning called recess, then a longer lunch break, and then afternoon recess. I think recess was 15 or 20 minutes and lunch 45 or 50. Recess was enough time to go to queue up for the toilet, eat an apple, or get beaten up. Lunch was long enough to do something with your mates. It varied between playing footy, cricket and for a while soccer. That was only while you were invited into the group, or if they didn't have enough players. Sometimes it was when I had a soccer ball that Dad bought for me to take to school. I spent a bit of time watching the new library get built. That was interesting. Huey wasn't my only friend. I had a good mate, Dave, who went to a different school. Dave and I spent a lot of time together on the weekends riding our bikes around. As far as school friends went, Huey was the most "consistent" although I wasn't really part of his "in" crew. That was the way it was for 7 years, we had prep, which I assume is for "preparation", and then grades 1 to 6. Then Huey and I went to different High Schools, which I think are called Secondary Colleges now. That sounds much more posh. I'd still see him fairly regularly. I always felt welcome at his house and we went motor bike riding and BMX racing together at various times depending on the season and what else was going on at the time. We stayed in touch after that when we started driving and working. We were in each others wedding parties and then our lives sort of drifted apart. It's hard to put a reason on it. He moved away a bit. Not too far, just over an hours drive. We both had kids. I guess neither of us put in the effort to stay in touch. For me it was probably one of those things that I'll do later. I had quite a few of those. There were a few things that happened that probably made me less inclined to put the effort in. Huey mentioned once that even though he didn't invite me to his birthday parties, he was surprised that I'd still turn up. His Mum had sent the invitation to me. He said it in a way that it was good that I turned up, and maybe even that he didn't need to invite me because his Mum would. But it's really not hard to put my name on a list, or rattle if off to his Mum when they're discussing it. I can't remember exactly when it was that me mentioned this. It was probably when we were about 20 or so. I didn't feel very valued after that. Another thing around the same time my Dad told me that Marge, Huey's Mum, would ask for Huey and I not to be in the same class at primary school. That would explain what I had thought was just shit luck. At the time I thought I had to be careful with what Dad said but I learned more and more as time went by that usually he was right. I guess I thought some things were too hard to believe, or I didn't want to believe them. Now I believe most things that he said and wish he was still around to tell me more.
I guess I was seen as a bit of a trouble maker to some people, I don't know. I wasn't involved in any after school activities like a lot of other kids were. Dad wouldn't let me go to cubs or boy scouts. He may have been aware of something, or just concerned that the rumours of child molesters could be true and didn't want to take the risk. There was no doubt that he saw anything like that as a distraction from academic studies. He was very academic and had done well. That all turned to shit later on but that's a story for another time. There was a lot of "bonding" at these after school activities that I missed out on so couldn't be part of a lot of conversations at school.
There was a low time in my life before I got married when I went to stay with Huey for a few days. He was very "supportive" and I felt welcome. He said he's there anytime, and it felt very sincere. That was a memorable moment for me and I think about it often.
How long has it been since I've spoken with Huey? I reckon it's more than 15 years, possibly more than 20. It was when he was changing a computer network from coax token ring to CAT5 Ethernet. I said don't bother about testing the cable, just put it in and it will probably work fine, if not just deal with any that are a problem. Some mob had quoted a ridiculous amount to test the cat5 cables with a full bandwidth test and report and all that nonsense. It was just PC's making stock queries to a server and not HD video or anything. He didn't call me. I just happened to be at his Dads work when he called his Dad. That's another story for another time. For now I'll just point out that Huey and his Dad were good friends of mine. And my sister was good friends with Huey's sister and their Mum. It just happened that his Dad worked between where I worked and lived so it was convenient to stop off for a chat and see what he was up to on my way home.
Do you ever start a story and then realise there is too much to explain? This is one of those..
So I think about contacting Huey often but I don't. Partly because it's been a while but mostly because of the bits I haven't explained. When people know other people and those people have shown extremely poor character, sometimes it's best to let sleeping dogs lie. That's another thing my Dad used to say.
I'm sure you all know that when relationships turn to shit, mutual friends often get stuck in the middle.
I started writing this a few months ago and haven't contacted Huey. That's the answer.. Should I ? Probably. Will I? Probably not.