My Western High School senior classmates. Many of us remain in touch with each other, more than 50 years later. Most of us lived in the Parma, Spring Arbor, Woodville, Michigan areas.
The 38th Short Story
Friends, Part 1: Childhood and Early Adulthood
"Friends, Part 1: Childhood and Early Adulthood"
ANDY'S LESSONS FROM LIFE
My 38th Short Story
While direct and extended family members often provide some of the most-lasting relationships, this particular story is focused on friends, other than family. I do mention Bonnie, only because we were friends first, years before we ever decided to get married.
Many of you may not appreciate my marriage experiences during my 20s and early 30s, but you’ve been the greatest supporters of my writings, so I have always owed it to you to be brutally honest. This period of my life wasn’t exactly my proudest, but it was what it was. While I can’t change it after the fact, I could learn and prove to be a better man, from that point on.
I hope you enjoy more of Andy's life experiences and the lessons that come with them.
"Friends, Part 1: Childhood and Early Adulthood"
“Friendships can be difficult to discover, but they often become treasures in our lives.”
--Andy Skrzynski
My heart hurt whenever I imagined my time on Earth without friends. If I were to lack such relationships, boredom would certainly reign as my days marched on, and life would not be nearly as rewarding. Who will show me the ropes or keep me out of trouble when I screw up?
Fortunately, after our dad took us back home from the orphanage, and a few years later when I left the house for good, gaining friends didn’t seem to pose much of a problem. During my stay at the St. Joseph Home for Boys, my listening skills grew as I spoke to many of the little lads about their problems and tried my best to console them.
Such skills made it easier to talk and listen to newer acquaintances encountered during my school years and beyond. As a result, I have been blessed with more friends than I ever dreamed possible.
For sure, there is no mistaking my best friend. I married my soulmate, Bonnie, in 1987, and she has provided a guiding light throughout our marriage. Our biggest argument in recent years has unfolded each and every night as we’ve rushed to be the first to exclaim, “I love you most!”
One particular truism has withstood the test of time so far in my life. Friends just didn’t happen, and they wouldn’t have necessarily hung around if I ignored them.
Most responded favorably to nurturing and opening my heart and soul, on occasion. While observing relationships, I’ve noticed some telltale traits that separate people with plenty of reliable friends from those with a few not-so-dependable acquaintances.
Given that understanding, my innate senses helped me spot the occasional pretenders, who tried too hard. Bribes, superficial compliments, jealous shaming, and other such tactics sometimes fooled the more vulnerable souls in the short term, but these practices rarely provided staying power to fulfill true friendships for any meaningful length of time.
Throughout life, I’ve encountered many friends who grew to be trusted buddies of all kinds. I have been blessed with singing, sporting, hunting, fishing, card playing, and veteran buddies, among various others. I’ve even had fabulous dating and partying partners, who joined me while we cruised local bars and dance floors, during the remarkably short periods when I was single.
Looking back over my younger years, maintaining friendships proved difficult at best. Since I hopped from one school to another, when my parents divorced and I lived in the orphanage, my earliest encounters in elementary school usually didn’t endure.
Lasting friends began to develop later in Western High School. This was the first place where I moved along with my classmates to different grades and a few extracurricular activities.
Tending to be more of the listening type of person, friends came easier during that period. I even got along fine with girls at a platonic level, but most of my time was spent with three guys with similar interests and tastes from choir class. Steve, Doug, and George joined me in a quartet, and we spent a lot of time practicing our songs and performing at several high school concerts.
Steve and Doug would also join me in occasional gatherings for touch football and softball. George, on the other hand, wasn’t into sports but loved playing guitar. He and I would get together at his place and learn new songs, while I broke in my spanking new acoustical guitar.
As much as I wished we had kept in touch after graduation, we lost contact with each other as the four of us scattered to different parts of the country. Despite efforts to locate my three amigos, I’ve only been able to remain in touch with Doug through social media.
While the trio were my closest friends at that time, I have maintained contact with many other high school classmates through the internet. Whenever I’ve traveled to Michigan, I often got together with as many of my wonderful Western Panthers as I could. I loved high school and the friendships developed back then, and I have vowed never to forget them.
My heart holds a special place for three other loyal Panthers who helped me through rough times, after leaving home in the middle of my senior year. I’ve written about these saviors, Jackie, Blaine and Marilyn, in the lengthy epilogue of my orphanage book, “Andy and the St. Joseph Home for Boys.”
If Jackie hadn’t led me to Blaine and Marilyn, who took me into their home for the remainder of my high school days, I likely would have fallen onto a path that could have led to a much tougher existence. Their amazing kindness enlightened me to remember and be thankful for these remarkable friends, till my last breath.
I met the greatest acquaintance of my life during the period, when I attended Jackson Community College and shortly after I married my first wife in 1973. I never imagined this new friend would end up being my soulmate, many years later. Bonnie was hired at Jackson Iron & Metal, in the same office where my first wife worked.
My wife and I occasionally had meals together and played double-deck Pinochle with Bonnie and her boyfriend. (I’ve written plenty about my relationship with Bonnie in my orphanage book epilogue and in many of my short stories, so I won’t repeat them here.)
As my adulthood unfolded, living on my own was fleeting and downright unfathomable. As my longest-lasting friends would attest, I really didn’t favor being single for more than a whisper of time.
Being brutally honest to myself and those around me, I’d have to admit to harboring a chauvinistic attitude throughout my earlier post-teenage years. True to my preferences, I never endeared myself to cooking, cleaning the house, or washing clothes for that matter.
The “manly” activities of taking care of the vehicles and most outdoor work were more to my liking. I didn’t even mind managing the money and filing those dastardly income taxes each year, though I would have gladly relinquished them in a wink.
Nobody ever mistook me for a handyman. Attempting to make some repairs in my earlier years often led to more costly mistakes, so I learned to schedule a mechanic or electrician to deal with some of the more complicated tasks.
Being rather selfish in my younger adulthood, I relished the concept of marriage, paired with the separation of powers that some women also preferred. If someone had tallied the sum of my days of singledom, after high school and through to the present, the total would add up to less than 1.5 years – a preposterously short time for having been married three times.
So, even though I found myself tied to a knot throughout most of my adult life, having a few dating buddies during those rare, lonely periods came in handy. Shortly after moving to Austin, Texas, to work for IBM in 1977, I ran into Robert and Ted at the swimming pool of the apartment complex, where my first wife and I lived. Both of my new compadres were single and had plenty of time on their hands.
My wife and I developed relationships with a few married couples, but whenever she wanted some time to herself, I’d play sports like tennis, softball, and football with my two single friends. We became buds in no time at all.
After about a year, my first wife desired a breakup, and we became separated. To be clear, there was absolutely no hanky-panky of any sorts on my part during our marriage. We agreed it would be best to part ways and move on.
Being the buds they were, Robert and Ted willingly introduced me to the dating scene. Such a ritual was very foreign and a bit scary, since I had only been on two rather uneventful dates in high school, with a couple of very nice girls. Such a plight left me an inexperienced virgin before falling in love and marrying my first wife.
While I had fun tagging along with my Texas buddies, the whole ritual of finding and asking a strange woman to dance the first couple of times convinced me that dating was really not my gig. Each failed attempt left me wondering if I’d ever find another wife.
Lots of questions swirled in my mind every time I approached a strange woman for the first time. Will she like me, or is she going to reject me like that last one? Why does this have to be so hard?
Feeling totally unsure and always sweating up a storm, I’d roll my eyes. I hate dating! Why do I always have to ask them? I certainly wouldn’t mind a woman asking me for a change!
Fortunately, my friends were hosting or inviting me to parties on most weekends. While I still felt terribly uncomfortable milling around and approaching some woman I never met before, I did my best. I preferred participating in the occasional volleyball game or other outdoor activities in the backyard on some of these occasions.
During one of those volleyball games, shortly after my first separation, a woman on the other side of the net caught my attention. Being of weak mind and soul, when it came to the opposite sex, I likened the young, energetic woman to “Wonder Woman” – the Amazon knockout who graced TVs throughout our nation during those days. This attractive stranger’s long, dark hair, which hung to the middle of her back, and her shapely figure were absolutely mesmerizing.
Before I knew it, we were dating quite regularly, and after a few months we tied the knot, for better or worse. Such a short courtship and brief time since my first marriage displayed all the earmarks of the dreaded “rubber bounce” to the friends around me. I, on the other hand, was totally oblivious to such misgivings, of course. They just don’t understand!
While I never dilly dallied between matrimonial ceremonies, I undoubtedly should have searched longer for a new mate between my first and second marriages. With little willpower to resist, I set my feelings free, and an undeniable attraction hit me with a force I could not resist. My inevitable plight was sealed.
********
That’s it for now. As you can readily tell, my 20-something years were filled with fun, turmoil, and wasn’t necessarily a period to garner much pride. My life was changing by leaps and bounds, and my mind struggled to keep up.
I’ve never regretted having been married to my first two wives, but I know I could have been a better husband, if I hadn’t been such a kid at heart during those years. Fortunately, I learned a great deal about my heart and soul and how to better conduct myself to become fully committed in any future marriage.
Thank you for your tremendous patience and wonderful support!
Andy Skrzynski
ANDY'S LESSONS FROM LIFE
My 38th Short Story
While direct and extended family members often provide some of the most-lasting relationships, this particular story is focused on friends, other than family. I do mention Bonnie, only because we were friends first, years before we ever decided to get married.
Many of you may not appreciate my marriage experiences during my 20s and early 30s, but you’ve been the greatest supporters of my writings, so I have always owed it to you to be brutally honest. This period of my life wasn’t exactly my proudest, but it was what it was. While I can’t change it after the fact, I could learn and prove to be a better man, from that point on.
I hope you enjoy more of Andy's life experiences and the lessons that come with them.
"Friends, Part 1: Childhood and Early Adulthood"
“Friendships can be difficult to discover, but they often become treasures in our lives.”
--Andy Skrzynski
My heart hurt whenever I imagined my time on Earth without friends. If I were to lack such relationships, boredom would certainly reign as my days marched on, and life would not be nearly as rewarding. Who will show me the ropes or keep me out of trouble when I screw up?
Fortunately, after our dad took us back home from the orphanage, and a few years later when I left the house for good, gaining friends didn’t seem to pose much of a problem. During my stay at the St. Joseph Home for Boys, my listening skills grew as I spoke to many of the little lads about their problems and tried my best to console them.
Such skills made it easier to talk and listen to newer acquaintances encountered during my school years and beyond. As a result, I have been blessed with more friends than I ever dreamed possible.
For sure, there is no mistaking my best friend. I married my soulmate, Bonnie, in 1987, and she has provided a guiding light throughout our marriage. Our biggest argument in recent years has unfolded each and every night as we’ve rushed to be the first to exclaim, “I love you most!”
One particular truism has withstood the test of time so far in my life. Friends just didn’t happen, and they wouldn’t have necessarily hung around if I ignored them.
Most responded favorably to nurturing and opening my heart and soul, on occasion. While observing relationships, I’ve noticed some telltale traits that separate people with plenty of reliable friends from those with a few not-so-dependable acquaintances.
Given that understanding, my innate senses helped me spot the occasional pretenders, who tried too hard. Bribes, superficial compliments, jealous shaming, and other such tactics sometimes fooled the more vulnerable souls in the short term, but these practices rarely provided staying power to fulfill true friendships for any meaningful length of time.
Throughout life, I’ve encountered many friends who grew to be trusted buddies of all kinds. I have been blessed with singing, sporting, hunting, fishing, card playing, and veteran buddies, among various others. I’ve even had fabulous dating and partying partners, who joined me while we cruised local bars and dance floors, during the remarkably short periods when I was single.
Looking back over my younger years, maintaining friendships proved difficult at best. Since I hopped from one school to another, when my parents divorced and I lived in the orphanage, my earliest encounters in elementary school usually didn’t endure.
Lasting friends began to develop later in Western High School. This was the first place where I moved along with my classmates to different grades and a few extracurricular activities.
Tending to be more of the listening type of person, friends came easier during that period. I even got along fine with girls at a platonic level, but most of my time was spent with three guys with similar interests and tastes from choir class. Steve, Doug, and George joined me in a quartet, and we spent a lot of time practicing our songs and performing at several high school concerts.
Steve and Doug would also join me in occasional gatherings for touch football and softball. George, on the other hand, wasn’t into sports but loved playing guitar. He and I would get together at his place and learn new songs, while I broke in my spanking new acoustical guitar.
As much as I wished we had kept in touch after graduation, we lost contact with each other as the four of us scattered to different parts of the country. Despite efforts to locate my three amigos, I’ve only been able to remain in touch with Doug through social media.
While the trio were my closest friends at that time, I have maintained contact with many other high school classmates through the internet. Whenever I’ve traveled to Michigan, I often got together with as many of my wonderful Western Panthers as I could. I loved high school and the friendships developed back then, and I have vowed never to forget them.
My heart holds a special place for three other loyal Panthers who helped me through rough times, after leaving home in the middle of my senior year. I’ve written about these saviors, Jackie, Blaine and Marilyn, in the lengthy epilogue of my orphanage book, “Andy and the St. Joseph Home for Boys.”
If Jackie hadn’t led me to Blaine and Marilyn, who took me into their home for the remainder of my high school days, I likely would have fallen onto a path that could have led to a much tougher existence. Their amazing kindness enlightened me to remember and be thankful for these remarkable friends, till my last breath.
I met the greatest acquaintance of my life during the period, when I attended Jackson Community College and shortly after I married my first wife in 1973. I never imagined this new friend would end up being my soulmate, many years later. Bonnie was hired at Jackson Iron & Metal, in the same office where my first wife worked.
My wife and I occasionally had meals together and played double-deck Pinochle with Bonnie and her boyfriend. (I’ve written plenty about my relationship with Bonnie in my orphanage book epilogue and in many of my short stories, so I won’t repeat them here.)
As my adulthood unfolded, living on my own was fleeting and downright unfathomable. As my longest-lasting friends would attest, I really didn’t favor being single for more than a whisper of time.
Being brutally honest to myself and those around me, I’d have to admit to harboring a chauvinistic attitude throughout my earlier post-teenage years. True to my preferences, I never endeared myself to cooking, cleaning the house, or washing clothes for that matter.
The “manly” activities of taking care of the vehicles and most outdoor work were more to my liking. I didn’t even mind managing the money and filing those dastardly income taxes each year, though I would have gladly relinquished them in a wink.
Nobody ever mistook me for a handyman. Attempting to make some repairs in my earlier years often led to more costly mistakes, so I learned to schedule a mechanic or electrician to deal with some of the more complicated tasks.
Being rather selfish in my younger adulthood, I relished the concept of marriage, paired with the separation of powers that some women also preferred. If someone had tallied the sum of my days of singledom, after high school and through to the present, the total would add up to less than 1.5 years – a preposterously short time for having been married three times.
So, even though I found myself tied to a knot throughout most of my adult life, having a few dating buddies during those rare, lonely periods came in handy. Shortly after moving to Austin, Texas, to work for IBM in 1977, I ran into Robert and Ted at the swimming pool of the apartment complex, where my first wife and I lived. Both of my new compadres were single and had plenty of time on their hands.
My wife and I developed relationships with a few married couples, but whenever she wanted some time to herself, I’d play sports like tennis, softball, and football with my two single friends. We became buds in no time at all.
After about a year, my first wife desired a breakup, and we became separated. To be clear, there was absolutely no hanky-panky of any sorts on my part during our marriage. We agreed it would be best to part ways and move on.
Being the buds they were, Robert and Ted willingly introduced me to the dating scene. Such a ritual was very foreign and a bit scary, since I had only been on two rather uneventful dates in high school, with a couple of very nice girls. Such a plight left me an inexperienced virgin before falling in love and marrying my first wife.
While I had fun tagging along with my Texas buddies, the whole ritual of finding and asking a strange woman to dance the first couple of times convinced me that dating was really not my gig. Each failed attempt left me wondering if I’d ever find another wife.
Lots of questions swirled in my mind every time I approached a strange woman for the first time. Will she like me, or is she going to reject me like that last one? Why does this have to be so hard?
Feeling totally unsure and always sweating up a storm, I’d roll my eyes. I hate dating! Why do I always have to ask them? I certainly wouldn’t mind a woman asking me for a change!
Fortunately, my friends were hosting or inviting me to parties on most weekends. While I still felt terribly uncomfortable milling around and approaching some woman I never met before, I did my best. I preferred participating in the occasional volleyball game or other outdoor activities in the backyard on some of these occasions.
During one of those volleyball games, shortly after my first separation, a woman on the other side of the net caught my attention. Being of weak mind and soul, when it came to the opposite sex, I likened the young, energetic woman to “Wonder Woman” – the Amazon knockout who graced TVs throughout our nation during those days. This attractive stranger’s long, dark hair, which hung to the middle of her back, and her shapely figure were absolutely mesmerizing.
Before I knew it, we were dating quite regularly, and after a few months we tied the knot, for better or worse. Such a short courtship and brief time since my first marriage displayed all the earmarks of the dreaded “rubber bounce” to the friends around me. I, on the other hand, was totally oblivious to such misgivings, of course. They just don’t understand!
While I never dilly dallied between matrimonial ceremonies, I undoubtedly should have searched longer for a new mate between my first and second marriages. With little willpower to resist, I set my feelings free, and an undeniable attraction hit me with a force I could not resist. My inevitable plight was sealed.
********
That’s it for now. As you can readily tell, my 20-something years were filled with fun, turmoil, and wasn’t necessarily a period to garner much pride. My life was changing by leaps and bounds, and my mind struggled to keep up.
I’ve never regretted having been married to my first two wives, but I know I could have been a better husband, if I hadn’t been such a kid at heart during those years. Fortunately, I learned a great deal about my heart and soul and how to better conduct myself to become fully committed in any future marriage.
Thank you for your tremendous patience and wonderful support!
Andy Skrzynski
Sergio Garcia was a fun classmate in 4th and 5th grades at St. Stan's in Jackson, Michigan, back in the mid-1960s. We lost touch, after I moved out of the orphanage to return back home, when my dad remarried in 1965. I went to Western Jr. High that next September at the start of the new school year. Fortunately, as I was writing and publishing my "Andy and the St. Joseph Home for Boys" book, Sergio and I rediscovered each other via FB. Bonnie and I drove up to his place in 2020 to visit my good friend again, after a 55-year separation!!! It feels wonderful to be back in touch after so long!!!
My fantastic classmates, who made up the Class of 1972 from Western High School!!! We were a relatively small class, compared to many larger high schools. This cozier size made it easier to know everybody in the class. I've remained friends and keep in touch with many dear classmates through social media.
The Class of '72's 40th Reunion. I had such a wonderful time in High School and love the great Western High Panthers!!!
Bonnie and I (on the right) enjoyed a pleasant dinner in the kitchen of Buca Di Beppo with 3 of my dearest friends. These my 3 angels saved me from potentially taking the wrong path after I left home for good in the middle of my senior year in high school. Next to me, is Jay Hilliard (Jackie Gill) who opened her heart and listened to me the night I ran away from home. After hearing me out, she drove me to Blaine and Marilyn Goodrich (far left), who welcomed me into their abode, late that same night. Blaine was our class sponsor, Speech Class teacher, and Debate coach. His sweet wife, Marilyn, treated me with the kindness of a mother. I will NEVER forget their kindness and love!!!
Robert Acosta was one of the very first two friends that I established, when I moved to Austin, Texas in 1977, after gaining my bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Michigan State University. We quickly became great buds and remain so till this very day. His lovely wife, Teresa, is also a great friend, much like a wonderful sister. I'll be including Teresa in my upcoming short story.
Like Robert Acosta, Ted Howard was the first of my friends in Austin. Us three amigos were engineers, fresh out of different colleges and starting our careers at IBM. We enjoyed fantastic times together and have remained great buds till this day, even though we have moved to different areas since those amazing times! They both joined many other Austin friends to help me celebrate one of my first-ever book signings, after writing and publishing my first novel, "The New World: A Step Backward," in the summer of 2015.