Celebrating a milestone …

I was, in literal fact, momentarily speechless.

But more on that shortly.

About 6 months ago, my oldest and dearest friend, Walter Foery, and I started to talk about celebrating a milestone in our long relationship: the 50th anniversary of the year we first met, in 1965. Wouldn’t it be cool, we said, to see how many of our other friends from so long ago could gather in Richmond for a dinner party? We set about seeing if we could make it work.

Walter and I met in 1965 just as summer was about to begin. We learned early on that we were both Virgos. I was born September 11. Walter was born September 19.

Virgos are organized. We make lists. We are analytical, observant, reliable and precise. Our lives are, as much as we can make them, tidy.

So as we began planning an anniversary celebration, Walter -- who now lives in Connecticut -- and I began exchanging suggestions by email. We each brought our Virgo skills to bear.

I’ve learned from experience that any process can take forever if two Virgos reach for consensus. So, since Walter is a much better Virgo than I am, I decided to back off and let him do the heavy lifting. It was a smart decision on my part -- Walter really is better at such things than I am. In the event, that decision led to one of the most glorious gatherings of my life.

The summer of 1965 was worth remembering for any number of reasons. It was my last full summer in Richmond before joining the Air Force. What was to be the Summer of Love a few years later was only a hint of a whisper in the wind. Vietnam was still distant background noise to those of us on the cusp of adulthood.
   
So many aspects of our lives were coming to a head that summer. Martin Luther King had given his “I have a dream” speech two years before, and JFK had been assassinated just a few months after that. LBJ was in the White House.

I was a drive-time deejay at Richmond’s No. 1 or No. 2 rock radio station -- the numbers wobbled back and forth. Walter was selling burgers at the McDonald’s on Broad Street near Libbie.

It was a carefree summer, one of the last we would see for a few years. The movie that was to become one of America’s favorites, “The Sound of Music,” was playing at the Willow Lawn Theater. “Up the Down Staircase” by Bel Kaufman was at the top of the New York Times best-seller list. In July, “Satisfaction” by the Stones reigned over the Billboard Top 40 chart.

For Walter and me and our crew of close friends, it was a summer of pure fun. There were daytime road trips to D.C., and weekends at the Rappahannock River, and nights of partying and dancing in Richmond. Life was wonderful and would remain so endlessly -- or so we thought.

Well, we all know how that turned out.

But back to the present. Walter arranged for 11 of us -- four of us who actually spent that summer together and a small number of family and current friends -- to have dinner at a private room this month at Southbound, a stellar example of the growing number of fine restaurants in Richmond. He picked an excellent menu, the music was perfect (Walter had assembled the hit songs from every week of 1965 and burnt CDs for each of us), and the conversations brought back wave after unending wave of treasured memories of that summer that we hoped would never end. We lingered for hours, catching up.

But back to being speechless.

As Walter planned our anniversary celebration, I would occasionally ask if there was anything I could do, and if there was anything I should be prepared for. His answer was always the same: Don’t worry about it.

As the waiters at Southbound began to clear our entrees and prepare for dessert, Walter stood to make a short speech. He read from his journal, which he began 50 years ago and still continues, about the beginning of our friendship and love for one another. It was an incredibly moving moment on a splendid occasion.

When he finished, I realized that I should say something.

But I was quite speechless, overcome by memories.

Nevertheless, I gathered myself and soldiered on.

I don’t remember one word of what I said.

I do remember that I spoke for about a minute, got two big laughs, and a round of applause when I finished. The rest is still a blur.
   
But I am grateful to my friend for all of the work he did to make the occasion possible. And also for all the work he has done to make our friendship survive for 50 years.

It has been the most important friendship of my life.

*    *     *

(The picture above is of Walter and me at the top of the Schafberg, an Austrian mountain near St. Wolfgang, on one of our many vacations together.  You can read Walter’s account of our recent celebration on his blog.)