One silver lining to my brother’s recent surgery was that the occasion helped bring about two reunions between friends who had allowed decades to go by since their last meetings. One was a reunion between my dad and a friend who was also his debate partner through both high school and college – named David M. Berg. (Dad and others would usually refer to him as David M so everyone knew which David Berg you were talking about.) For those of you who don’t know, when a debate occurs, it is tradition for each team to write their names on the blackboard at the front of the room (assuming that the debate is occurring in some sort of classroom.) So imagine the bewilderment of their opponents when one of the DB’s would go to the board and write:
lst Negative: David Berg
2nd Negative: David Berg
The two of them were a stupendous team with a very good record- and that was due not only to how long they debated with each other and to their skills and gifts as debaters, but also perhaps a bit to the confusion which their double nomenclature stirred up in their opponents. As close as they were, life took them in different directions- and David M ended up as chair of the English Dept. at Purdue University. Not too shabby!
If I remember correctly, they had not seen each other since graduation, which was 1954, so this reunion could not have been more overdue!
My reunion was not after quite that long a time apart, but it felt no less meaningful for me than if it had been. Eric Isaacson was a freshman at Luther when I was a senior, and he was a saxophonist rather than a singer- so under normal circumstances the two of us would have barely crossed paths if at all. But Eric was one of four or five freshman guys – either music majors or involved in music – who I sort of took under my wing, just as Brian Newhouse had done with me several years earlier. We had some very good times together but then life’s currents took us in different directions and out of contact with each other for many many years. Then several years ago, when a former student of mine was applying to Indiana University, I tried to send an email to Eric, who I somehow knew was a professor of music theory there. And lo and behold, he answered my email and expressed the hope that we might meet sometime. (Sure beats “I don’t know how you got my email address, but please never bother me again!”) And more recently, when I emailed him to say that I was soon to be in Indianapolis for my brother’s surgery, he offered to drive 60 minutes from Bloomington for a rendezvous. Now that is friendship.
And what a delightful time we had! It was so strange because on the one hand it felt like a lot of time had elapsed- because we had both gone on to live very full and eventful lives, complete with kids (eric) or cockers spaniels (me) and had to catch ourselves up on SO much. And on the other hand, it felt like almost no time had elapsed at all, at least in terms of our comfort level. And at its root was that terrific sense that we both liked each other and respected each other and enjoyed each other every bit as much now as we had a quarter of a century ago at Luther. And it only made me regret that I had grown so careless with such a fine friendship.
Happy reunions make me think of one which was not nearly so happy. It was freshman year at Luther, and Marshall and I somehow found out that a girl who had grown up in our neighborhood but then moved away from Decorah was back now for college. Her name was Barb Forde and she was a cute blonde who lived two doors down from me and with whom we played all the time. We spotted her picture in the fall freshman pictorial directory and then when we knew she was working in the cafeteria, scraped up the courage to go up to her and introduce ourselves to her. We were SO excited – and she could not have been less impressed. (And made no apparent effort to hide the fact. She looked at us like we had just fallen off of a garbage truck.) And those are the last words we exchanged with Barb Forde, needless to say.
With that memory still burned in a corner of my brain, you can see why I especially appreciate what this reunion with Eric felt like. . . a completely sweet, heartwarming moment that you only wish could have lasted forever.
pictured: Eric Isaacson and Greg Berg, Indianapolis, May ’07.