55 Years Ago, My High School Friends and I Promised to Meet at Our Lake — What I Found There Changed Everything
About marriages and children and jobs and mistakes.
Nick told me Tommy had kept that useless red lure through six house moves.
Ray had carried his compass to Germany, then kept it in his desk for the rest of his life.
Nick still had the knife.
"I wanted you to have it," he said.
I reached into my bag.
"I brought something too."
His eyebrows lifted.
I placed a small wooden object in his palm.
A carved fish.
I'd made it in shop class when I was 16.
We used to joke that it was the only fish Tommy's lure would ever catch.
I'd kept it for more than half a century.
Nick stared at it.
Then he laughed so hard Luis came in to check on him.
We had 55 years of friendship to catch up on, and we weren't finished yet.
A month later, we arranged one more meeting.
Not at the lake because Nick couldn't travel.
