The Group

 Jack died this past Saturday morning in Columbus, Ohio.  He was 90.

Now you may be asking yourself why this is important.  In reality, he is a piece of a larger story, one that I wanted to write about.

There are a couple readers of this blog who will know who Jack is.  He and his wife Rae Carol, and their two children, Jerry and Karen, lived in St. Louis for a few years in the late 1960's.  They went to church, the Overland Church of Christ, where our family attended.  Jerry was my age, and we were friends, so it was natural that the parents became friends as well.

But here is where the story expands.  Jack and Rae Carol, along with my mom and dad were part of a larger group.  Let's add Bob and Mona, Don and Ann, Dan and Carol Ann, Mike and Nan, Dick and Kay, Ron and Elaine, Gene and Hilma.  Nine couples, all in the same age group, all with teenagers or younger kids, all attending the same church and all friends.

In the late sixties we lived in the St. Louis suburb of Overland.  About 20 miles northwest of downtown St. Louis, and about five miles south of Lambert Field, the local airport.  A well-established community, it's population was close to 25,000, and the church we attended had a weekly attendance in the 500-550 range.  I can remember our youth group had about 60-70 kids.

It the large group, the aforementioned couples quickly became friends.  Not only were they of the same faith, but they were also close in age and their kids were friends and close in age as well.  It was not unusual for various combinations of this group of friends to get together and socialize.  Go get pizza on Sunday night, go to ballgames together, barbecue pork steaks on all the summer holidays, every family bringing something different to the table.

Early in the book of Acts, Luke wrote this about the early church, "Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common."  Read those last few words again, "they had everything in common.

As the sixties ended and the seventies began, these couples began to scatter, just as young families in their early to mid 30's do.  Better jobs and opportunities, wanting to be closer to family, that was true with this group.

Dan and Carol Ann moved to West Virginia, eventually settling in Knoxville.  Mike and Nan moved to Jefferson City, MO, before settling just outside Indianapolis.  Gene and Hilma went to Pensacola, and as mentioned, Jack and Rae Carol moved to Columbus, Ohio.  Five couples stayed behind in St. Louis.

But friendships, genuine friendships are not limited by miles.  All of a sudden phone bills went up across the group as they tried to keep up.  Eventually, sometime in late 1970 or early 1971, someone in the group, it is not known who first had the brilliant idea, but someone suggested a weekend together, somewhere away, with no kids, somewhere they could be a group again, even if only for a few days.  So later that summer, six of the couples met at Brown County State Park in Indiana.  The get together was a hit and they vowed to do it again the following year.

In 1972 they met at Kentucky Lake, the following year at a state park in western Tennessee, the get togethers continued year after year after year.  There was a couple year break in the early eighties.  They didn't meet in 1989, the year Bob became the first member of the group to pass away.  They didn't meet between 1994 and 1996 when my parents, Arnold and Charlotte, lived in Italy, though almost all of them made the trek to Torino.  Some more than once.  Not all nine couples could make it every year, but most of them could.  

The get togethers continued into the new millennium.  My dad was the second member of the group to pass away, that was in 2009.  When my mom remarried in 2010, Tom was accepted into the group just like he had been part since the late sixties.

The gift of time is frequently a friend, but it is almost certainly a curse as well.  In the past ten years, Dan has died, Mike passed away, as has Dick.  two of the wives, Kay and Mona, have also gone to their reward.  Then, as mentioned at the beginning, Jack died this past week, barely a month after Ron passed away.

The last meeting of the group was in 2016, 46 years after their first get together.  For 46 years, these couples, these friends, who had everything in common, pledged to get together the following year for a weekend of laughing, eating, praying, catching up, and yes, at times, crying.  

To me, one of the kids from this group, it is a remarkable feat, to love others so much, that despite separated by miles, by time, the friendships were so valued, so cherished, they worked at maintaining and nurturing them.

Don and Ann's daughter Paige, Bob and Mona's daughter Lisa, are the two closest things I have to sisters.  I love them both dearly.  If anything happened to my folks, Mike and Nan would become my parents.  I loved them as much as anyone in the group.

There is a lesson to be learned.  Choose your friends wisely, choose good people, people who make you a better person, people you can always, always depend on, no matter what, people who your kids can look up to.

I see this happening in some of the couples at Sherrod Ave., where M and I attend.  It thrills me to see this next generation taking care of each other, just as "The Group" took care of each other for nearly 50 years.

I was blessed to have had a front-row seat to all of this.

Thanks for stopping by, be kind to each other.