Smarter Than That

On a Friday or Saturday night when I was in high school I couldn’t wait to get out of the house and go and hang out with my friends. Sometimes there would be a party, but mostly we would just walk or bike around talking and goofing off. We would set a time and place to meet and then decide what we would do that night. Every now and then my friends would get to the place early and assume that I wasn’t coming and then would head out leaving me stranded. I would spend the rest of the night trying to find them and since there was no set place for them to go I just wandered by myself. The odd time I got lucky, but more often than not I had an early night spent at home.

 

I know, that sounds kind of pathetic and it probably was but that was also life. I wasn’t the only one left high and dry, I was often with the group that took off without whoever stayed in watching Gunsmoke. There just wasn’t any way to get in touch because we were wandering thirty or forty years before the cell phone. Part of the problem is that we wandered such a large area and hopping on the TTC to go downtown to check out Sam’s or A &A record stores was common. I liked wandering down Yonge street. I rarely bought anything but it was fun hanging out with my buddies. Well, if I could find them of course.

 

I am still in touch with those people and for the most part nothing has changed. We still tease each other and laugh a lot when we talk. The topics we talk about now involve knee surgeries, grand kids, the weather and of course Covid. One of the good things about Covid is that we have an open Zoom meeting every Saturday at 2:00PM for whoever wants to chat. Mostly there are four or five couples and the odd time we have had nine or ten but if yo can make the call then that’s cool. I look forward to talking and catching up because I am out west and they are pretty much all in southern Ontario. Bottom line, it is fun.

 

There was another Zoom call this afternoon. I was a little late getting set up and didn’t sign in till about ten after two. I was the only guy on the Zoom meeting. I sat waiting for the others to come online but after a few minutes it became obvious that wasn’t going to happen. I can only look at myself on the computer screen for so long, I am beautiful but I can get better resolution in the bathroom mirror. As I was waiting for someone to come on I began to think about those high school days. Did they meet up on time and decide to go somewhere else on the web? Did they have their video turned off and were having fun watching me watch me? Did they go downtown?

 

I think that they were all taking advantage of the 20°C day in Ontario while I sat inside in Alberta watching the beginnings of a snow storm.  I hope they had a good day and I will talk to them next weekend unless the time of the Zoom meetings has changed and they just don’t want to talk to me any longer. Nah…they are smarter than that.