50th Reunion @ Galway Bay Pub

50th Reunion at the Galway Bay Irish Pub 

T McCabe

We had a fifty-year golden high school reunion on September 18 and 19 2010, St Raphael Academy Pawtucket RI class of 1960. There were many colorful scenes -- -- the best of which was the reception in the Galway Bay Irish Pub, a seedy rundown ethnic local pub with a house above where the proprietor keeps close watch. Now that's class!!   

There were many colorful and poignant scenes meeting friends of 50 years ago. Many erstwhile drinking buddies still holding a bottle of beer in their dominant hand, like the scene where I left them 50 years ago ----  in a look-a-like musty dark rundown pub. There was much magic -- conversations picking up from 50 years ago without even a pause --- bonds reconnected that ran deep --- being with best friends, each with a 50-year story to tell --- carefree laughter recreated from our teenage years.

The feeling that you were really home after 50 years of displacement, navigating by memory through streets with no name, with each corner resurrecting delicious warm memories of carefree childhood. Yet all the while knowing it is but a visit to a distant home that now had a different character.

After reminding me of my Huckleberry Finn childhood including being thrown out of the high school my classmates were all quite surprised that my professional career turned out successful -- -- likewise, so am I surprised. Little did we know that all the tumult in high school was purifying my character for the topsy-turvy experience of an entrepreneur, and it turned out the combination of pure mathematician and Yankee streetwise grit is deadly.

As you can tell by the picture the Galway Bay Pub bar is elongated, with a bar the shape of a bowling alley, and runs parallel to Pawtucket’s South Bend street. I arrived late to the reception and the place already had a healthy hilarious buzz.  Each tap on the shoulder awakened a long-forgotten friendship ---  each a separate celebration of laughter and joy -- -- no polite warmup necessary. At this age part of the celebration is just being alive and the beauty of this age is that ego is finally put aside and the laughter, hugs, and affection are finally all authentic ---- just like it was back in the high school days. It was best showing up late, meandering like a bumper car through a bowling alley, bumping into conversations and having people tap me on the shoulder exclaiming ‘Baron’.

My nickname was Baron --- I had a certain royal indignant posture that let me skate above all the bothersome high school responsibilities of homework and assignments -- -- and somehow get away with it. The flood of emotion and memories long forgotten opened us up -- -- the usual guarded comportment stripped away. Best yet I got to interact the way these old high school buddies remembered me -- -- the Baron was back!!  

More compelling than memories of old buddies are the memories of ourselves back them --- more authentic, outlandish, and crazy than now. And for a brief moment in the Galway Bay Pub I was indeed the Barron of old. It was at once comfortable, fun, silly, and spontaneous -- -- it was glorious. I stayed until the very last drop of alcohol and found another old friend, not of the class of 1960, who was tending bar -- -- and we hugged and told a few more good stories.

Back at the hotel that night I recounted the experience many times over with my wife trying to hold on to the high school years and the innocence of my adolescence. I knew it wasn’t me but it also wasn’t a masquerade -- -- it was true and authentic, a chance to relive the past and exalt in the gift and glory of childhood.

I still hold a piece of it now and as my degree of separation increases,  thought it best to capture the sentiment in writing. I have this notion that life turns back and revisits its past, mine was glorious, and I’m not through with it yet. All this is so special to me because, thank God, I never grew up.

This story was prompted by a discussion with Pete Healy in the parking lot on the way out. As we discussed our disbelief that this was the 50th golden anniversary we both asked what comes next? We were both at a loss, the class of 196o had platinum, silver, and gold anniversaries but neither of us knew of an anniversary beyond the 50th. It struck as both that this could be the end!!-- -- there is no way I’m accepting that -- -- there is so much more to say to our dear classmates, there's so much more story to be told, there are so many more hilarious and delicious memories of 50 years ago, there's much more rebonding to be done with friendships kindling for 50 years, ....

The reunions cannot come to an ending, and in that same spirit this story does not end. For life indeed circles back upon itself and in our later years we revisit our beginnings, and only then fully embrace their beauty and truth. I need to circle back and see everybody again, in fact my mind’s-eye pictures you all still there  .... and I'm going back, parking curbside on 123 Walcott Street and dropping in --- where I expect to see Andy Laughin in room 4 adding ‘Elvis’ to Brother Arthur recanting of the litany of the Saints, to smell the sweet aroma of those chocolate doughnuts in our standup cafeteria -- forbiddingly free to the early arrived. To see Helen Fisher ( both ) straightening out my fictitious class schedule conflict, to hear the clitter clatter of our football cleats as we walk to the practice field. To close dance again with Linda at the Saturday night Hop, negotiating the space between us with the Holy Ghost -- just one more root beer at Ratty’s car hop. 

Just one more time though the locker room door to the uneven hardwood floors of the St Rays gymnasium, which also served as the Chapel  -- a gymnasium in the true classical sense, both athletic and reverent -- it smelt one part jockstrap, one part incense -- the only place where you could receive holy communion and sink a layup from the same spot.

But most of all to see you all one more time, I expect you to be there ....... that’s an order from the Baron.

  

Thomas J McCabe, October 2010