Pete, Mike, and I

Back in the fall of 1971, Pete hailed from Jacksonville, Florida, Mike from Charlotte, North Carolina, and I from Clayton, North Carolina. We met on the campus of Wake Forest University as freshmen. We were friendly acquaintances: each one of us decided to major in chemistry, which placed us in a group of about 30 or so. By the end of junior year, we had spent a fair amount of time together in relatively small classes and labs.

I spent the first three years living on campus, and I really did not want to spend my senior year in Taylor dorm, again. I am not sure where Pete and Mike lived their first three years, but by the end of our junior year we all knew we wanted to go off-campus. That was a problem. Apartment owners near the campus wanted us to sign a year-long lease, but the school year was only nine months long. No student really wanted to throw away money on rent for the summer months.

I believe it was Mike who came up with a solution to the problem. He knew someone who wanted to rent an apartment for the summer only. We had the friend sign the lease, and we swore a blood oath to be good tenants for the remainder of the lease period. Problem solved.

It was a two-bedroom apartment. Pete had a bedroom to himself, while Mike and I shared a room. It was a nice apartment, too. There was never any excessive noise, no loud stereos from neighbors shaking the walls. I have the impression that not all the tenants were students: one day, in the parking lot, I ran into my quantum mechanics professor, walking his dog (which was the size of a small horse). I don’t know if he lived in the complex, but he lived close by, at the very least.

The lack of noise suited us to a tee. We were all serious students. Pete planned to go to medical school, Mike to dental school, and I to graduate school. Don’t get me wrong: we were in our early 20s and we believed, in a perverse sort of interpretation of Ecclesiastes 3, that there was a time to party hearty, which we did. But that time was limited. Our primary goal was to graduate with good enough grades to pursue our post-graduate plans.

We graduated on May 19, 1975. Wake required each student to walk across the stage, receive the diploma, and shake the hand of the President, James Ralph Scales. Thus Wake Forest graduations are fairly long, drawn out affairs. After the festivities, we three repaired to the apartment, cleaned it out and cleaned it up, and left, each on his own merry way.

That was the last time I saw Pete. He attended medical school somewhere in south Florida, and eventually became a dermatologist. I saw Mike one time after that. He and I both ended up at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Sometime during my first year there, while walking down a street, a little sports car pulled up beside me with Mike behind the wheel. We chatted for awhile, promised to get together again, and never did. He graduated from the dental school at UNC, and moved to Iowa, where he has a thriving dental/orthodontic practice. As a matter of fact, in 2012, the Midwestern Society of Orthodontists honored him with the Earl E. Shepard Distinguished Service Award.

This week the alumni magazine, cleverly named Wake Forest Magazine, arrived in the mail. I got around to looking at it last night. I read this magazine from the back, because that is where the class notes reside. The articles in the front almost never interest me, unless they happen to be about the history of the school, or some of the characters who attended the school. One of the first things one encounters at the back of the magazine is the obituaries. And there it was: a notice that Pete died last summer.

The magazine did not go into detail, but I found his obituary online. He died of a fairly rare blood disorder. It doesn’t seem fair, but that is life. And death.

My first thought was to contact Mike, but I soon put that idea aside. We haven’t spoken in nearly 50 years. What would I say to him? I haven’t spoken with Pete in nearly 50 years, and the likelihood is that I would never have gotten in touch with him, had he lived. Yet the news of his death troubles me. I am not sure why.

Surely there must be a point to this tale, but what is it? We live in a world of instant communications and almost unlimited access to data. After all, within 5 minutes online I located Mike and found an address and telephone number where I can contact him. In spite of technology, we do not keep in touch. My roommate from sophomore year lives in the area. We got together a couple of years ago, possibly three, with the promise to keep in touch. We haven’t. We have the wisdom of the ages at our fingertips, but part of that wisdom, the importance of friendships and the human touch, we ignore.

I must do something about that.