Friendships revisited

Every winter, four middle-aged guys gather on a golf course in Jupiter, Fla.

Our unlikely group consists of a heart surgeon, a film director, a retired software executive and a journalist. We don’t have much in common — except for 40 years of friendship.

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(from left) Andy Miller (red sweater), Tim Buckley, Rob Boova and Jeff Berky attend a Malvern, Pa., football game.

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Special to the AJC

Lynn Brazen of Jasper, Ga., (far left) and her friends from Memorial High School in Eau Claire, Wisc., get together every five years for a reunion. For their 60th birthday, they visited Oregon and, as they usually do, had their photos taken in bathing suits. The photo op was inspired by a funny birthday card one of them had received with a photo of a bunch of old ladies at the beach.

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Special to the AJC

Margaret Steward of Norcross (kneeling, second from right) and her fellow ‘queens’ from Moultrie took in New York City on one of their get-togethers, wearing tiaras with laminated tags such as ‘Queen of Stealing Somebody We Never Really Liked’s Boyfriend.’

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We went to high school together at Malvern in suburban Philadelphia, and there’s always plenty to talk and laugh about between golf rounds. Old girlfriends. Memorable teachers. The fumble on the goal line. Weird dates. What classmates are doing now.

The Class of ‘69 stories get funnier every year, in the “you-had-to-be-there” category.

Why Jupiter? Warm weather, great golf and it doesn’t hurt that two of the guys have homes there.

We don’t cook beyond potato chips. Our only nature excursion, aside from lagoons on the golf course, is a stroll on the sand after a late lunch at a beach restaurant. The one cultural event we faithfully attend is Happy Hour at the Square Grouper, a local outdoor bar.

We chat about wives, children, work. We talk sports. We share our still-flickering dreams. Next year there will be the same stories, maybe even some forgotten ones.

This annual getaway of little sleep and much laughter had me wondering about whether other Georgians had regular reunions with friends. So we asked that question in the Journal-Constitution’s Travel section and we were overwhelmed with the response: More than 100 Georgians sent stories and photos of their reunions.

Many connect former high school or college classmates, assembling from across the country. Other reunions consist of former neighbors or work buddies, or those who shared life overseas.

Some common themes emerge: When old friends assemble, the laughter overflows.

The groups share life’s ups and downs, including births and weddings, divorce and death. E-mail — and their great friendships — keep them connected. Differences in occupations and politics melt away.

Some groups change locations, with popular destinations including Las Vegas, New York City, the North Carolina mountains and just about any beach.

Other groups always meet in a regular spot. Seven women, including Janice Quinn of Atlanta, return to the Adirondack Mountains in New York for hiking and renewal of their 50-year friendship.

Many reunions boast such incredible longevity. Nurses who trained in Sioux City, Iowa, still meet — 52 years after graduation. “Friendships are close, some classmates are gone, more husbands are deceased but we still enjoy all who are able to come,” said Ruth Paquin, 73, of Lake Oconee. “The older you get, the more you cherish it.”

Reunion activities can be as different as quilt shopping and Texas Hold ‘Em.

Women may enjoy keeping scrapbooks and journals, cooking together and shopping till credit cards can’t take it anymore. Three women, on what they call the Broads Do Broadway trip, catch four New York plays in three days.

Men-only gatherings may include golf, cards or fishing. Five men aged 79 to 82, for example, rake in chips at their annual poker game, this year set for Los Angeles.

Mixed groups often will offer a range of things to do, including dancing to the oldies, from Elvis through the ’60s. Middlebury College classmates meet in the middle of a cow pasture in Vermont for slow-cooked chicken, beer and rock ‘n’ roll.

Then there are offbeat traditions. Former University of Florida sorority sisters have a yearly Taboo game competition.

Two longtime friends from New Jersey get together every leap year, the last one on what they call a ”Young, Foolish and Menopausal Road Trip” in the Southwest. They got tattoos.

But another reunion-goer, Janet Hicks of Duluth, said that a weekend with old friends is often just about talking, cooking and eating.

A group of surfing dudes, originally from Orlando, rev up their boards and head south for the best waves imaginable.

”The only requirement is warm water,” said Erik Gunderson, 38, who owns a construction firm in Woodstock. Up to 10 surfers meet every two years in locales such as Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Jamaica. They went to El Salvador recently, staying at what resembled a bed and breakfast, where they got three squares and six hours a day of great waves.

It’s never quite paradise. They’ve run into swarms of flies, sunburn, warm beer and broken air conditioners.

“We’re surfing our brains out,” said Gunderson. “We play cards, drink our share of beer, tell stories.”

But the focus is surfing. They’re paddling out every day at 6 a.m. The muscles may ache after a week of wipeouts, but Gunderson said he hopes to keep up surfing reunions ”for the rest of my life.”

Daughters from China

Betsy Vonk of Lawrenceville and others took a special 1999 trip to China: to adopt a daughter. Thirteen families who brought back a child bonded on that journey.

“All the moms decided we wanted to get the girls together [regularly] so they could have a relationship together through their lives,” she said. The girls are now 10, and this year’s reunion at Jekyll Island featured a trip to the sea turtle center, a nature

hike, craft-making and bike riding.

“We feel very close,” Vonk said. “We shared a very important moment together.”

‘The Big Chill’

In the popular 1983 film, college friends get reacquainted after the funeral of one of their own.

These ”Big Chill”-like reunions happen in real life.

• A classmate almost died twice from heart problems, and the guys from an upstate New York town started getting together annually. They include Al Fenstemacher of Buford.

• Girlfriends from a small Indiana town decided to get together after one passed away from breast cancer 10 years ago, said Jane Molen of Duluth. “We decided to not just get together at sad times.”

• Then there was Adrienne Woods’ call to the mother of a childhood friend, expressing condolences about her daughter’s death. But Judy Diaddigo of Gainesville was very much alive — and that got their reunions started in their hometown of Erie, Pa., and in Ohio and Florida.

Bonding overseas

Living together in foreign countries and during wartime creates a lasting bond that leads to regular reunions, sometimes in the location where it all began.

• Expatriates who lived in Shanghai, China, from the 1980s onward meet in various cities in the U.S. and Canada, and every five years they return to Shanghai, said Diane Leahy of Suwanee.

• ”Military brat” grads of Upper Heyford American High School in England have recently gathered in San Antonio, Las Vegas and Washington, D.C. “Many of our friends were lost until the emergence of the Internet,” said John W. Davis Jr. of Rome.

• Air Force basketball buddies stationed in Germany in the 1960s get together to reminisce about how big, fast and powerful they were, while their wives roll their eyes, said Al Dickson of Big Canoe.

• Men who served on the USS Louisville during World War II meet every two years, though their number is dwindling, said John H. Moon Jr., 83, of Gainesville. Moon was a Seaman 2nd Class on the ship, a cruiser that saw heavy action in the South Pacific. This year’s gathering was in Chattanooga. “I believe this will be the last one,” Moon said. “There’s not many of us left.”

• Jim Rinkel of Blue Ridge often attends reunions of men who served on the USS Missouri. “I always like to talk about the world’s greatest battleship,” said Rinkel, 82.

All this reunion talk has drawn my thoughts to winter golf in Jupiter with my Malvern mates — the camaraderie, the wisecracks, the

cocktails. Come winter, I’ll load up my clubs and sunblock and head south. Can’t wait.