Fracturing Friendships

Jerry, Roger, John, Mark, Chris, Me, Rene, Sean (Garry & Dan MIA)

Nothing lasts forever, not high school, not friendships, not anything. That’s a part of life. I’d already learned that, and was prepared for the eventuality of the end. Ready for it? No. Prepared for it? Yes.

I’ve had many restarts in my life. I moved from Cochrane to Timmins. Restart. I began Grade 1 in a new school, in a new town. Restart. I was held back in Grade 2 and had to repeat the year, with new classmates. Restart. When I left Pinecrest, I went to St. Theresa when all my school friends went to R. Ross Beattie. Restart. Half my friends left St. Theresa for the public-school system at the end of Grade 7. Reshuffle. Commencing high school, we were combined and amalgamated with the other Separate schools. Reshuffle. Throughout the ensuing years, I see from leafing through yearbooks, that our numbers dwindled as more and more kids transferred to TH&VS and RMSS. So, as Grade 12 began to come to its expected conclusion, I knew the writing was on the wall. All things must pass.

I was drifting through high school. I had no clue what I liked, no guidance on what I might be good at, what I might excel at in postsecondary school, or in life. Or what options were open to me, for that matter. I didn’t think I was especially bright. I’d never done that well at math or physics. I was largely disinterested in most of the subjects offered. I was especially good at English and History. We had next to no exposure to the Arts, no Music at all, so I had no insight into that world. I suspect now what I ought to have done, but hindsight is 20-20 and all that.

Butch MacMillian was our guidance counselor. I believe he was hopeless at it then. But I don’t think he had much choice as to whether or not he would fill that role, either. I think it was thrust upon him. Regardless, he sucked at it when we were there.

Butch told my sister that she wasn’t bright enough to become a nurse. She enrolled in Northern College’s Nursing program despite his advice, maybe even in spite of it; and when she graduated she told me to give him a copy of her graduation picture. Grad photos of nurses are/were different from others; they wore white uniforms and the now defunct, time honoured caps of old. She had obviously graduated from the Nursing program, something Butch told her she could never do. So her wanting me to give him her grad photo was a big fat fuck you. I don’t blame her. I’ve some of that lurking inside me, too, so I know it when I see it.

Butch didn’t just err when it came to guiding Karen. Butch told Dan Loreto that he did not require physics to get into teacher’s college. It turns out that Danny did need physics to get into the teacher’s program at the university he was attending. Danny had to go to summer school and pass physics or he would not be able to enter his program. He did.

As for me, Butch was silent as to my prospects of anything. That left me floundering with indecision. I actually travelled to Brock University to check out their campus the summer after Grade 11, but after poring through their course loads and curriculum, the degrees they offered, I wasn’t sure if they had anything to offer me. Nothing interested me, I couldn’t imagine what sort of jobs I might get from their degrees. And truth be told, I didn’t think I was bright enough to attend university. And I was terrified of the prospect of leaving home.

Then, my sister’s boyfriend, my future ex-brother-in-law, enrolled in the Haileybury School of Mines. I pondered HSM. Mining? I came from a mining town. I was informed by Marc (said future ex-brother-in-law) that there would always be mining. There was always a need for metal production, ergo, mining, and so there would always be jobs in mining. Clueless kid that I was, I did not think that mining engineering was in fact, a fistful of engineering, and that meant math and physics. There was also the security of knowing someone already in attendance. After mulling the prospect over for most of the coming year, I somehow convinced myself that I should go to Haileybury. And that meant leaving high school.

In many ways, I’d already begun the process. High school friendships are fleeting, temporary relationships, destined to fracture once the participants have moved on. As we grow up, we develop new interests, foster new friendships, and those older ones begin to fade away. Or so I found. Maybe others have forged long lasting relationships with those friends they had then. I didn’t. I wanted to, but for some reason, they all slipped out of my life, one by one.

John Lavric began telling stories about Lance, a new friend, someone we’d never met. Of weekend snowmobile adventures, of accidents and harrowing rides for help. He began talking about Tracy, this red-head he had his eye on, and who would ultimately become his girlfriend, and when that happened, we saw less and less of John.

Chris Cooper and Mark Charette began hanging out more, and Chris who’d been a presence in my life for the past five years became someone I usually just saw in class and bumped into in the hallways. And although I hung out with Mark, as well, and Roger Rheault, too, I didn’t have a car, I didn’t have a girlfriend, and I and they didn’t seem to share as many of the same interests anymore. Drifting began. They tried to set me up with a girl who had absolutely no interest I me, but that was as short lived an affair as you’d imagine. Mark and Roger and I drifted even further apart.

Renato Romey seemed destined to move to Toronto, where most of his family was.

And Garry Martin and I were spending more time at the pool, what with training and guarding and teaching swim lessons. And playing D&D. But we saw time marching on there, too. Alma and Astra Senkus left, Christine Rasicot, Lisa Leone, the list goes on. But there were also new friend cropping up within the Sportsplex’s walls, and then outside them too. There was Jeff O'Reilly, Jeff Chevrier, and there was Peter Cassidy, and Fran Cassidy, and then Cathy Walli, and then…. You know the drill. At that age, as some friends slip through your fingers, others slip in.

And then, abruptly, high school was over. We had our graduation ceremony at Nativity Church, we were Catholic, after all. We had our graduation dance, three-piece navy-blue pin stripes all around, complete with pocket watches. Throughout that weekend, we had our after-grad parties. We crisscrossed town, then out to Kamiscotia where one of the popular girls had opened her house to the masses, probably in hopes of her’s being remembered as the most popular grad party EVER! We geeks and freaks were welcomed to lackluster fanfare, we drank our beer, and piled back into our cars in search of better company. And then it was over. There are faces I’ve never seen again, whether I’d have liked to or not.

That summer, I quit my job at the pool. I’d had enough of it. My father wanted me to help with his on again, off again renovation of the addition basement. I guess my mother put her foot down, so there was an effort to complete the sauna, the shower, and what would become my burnt orange den. Construction was off and on, even then, so I had a lot of free time. I probably shouldn’t have quit. Lord knows I needed the money. But I did.

I went to summer school too. I’d passed math, but I took it again to get my marks up.

My mother told me to get out and get a job, so I went around some, and asked for applications, but by that time, all summer placements were filled, mainly by college and university students, back in February.

That too passed, then the summer.

And in the fall, I entered the Mining Engineering program at the Haileybury School of Mines.

It was the first big mistake of my life.

It would not be the last.