Nov 17, 2016 4 min read

Thirty-nine years ago, I took the elevator to the fifth floor of a dormitory at California State College for the first time, and within an hour had met the people who would become my best friends for the next four years. Proximity is powerful when you’re in a new setting.

After meeting my roommate Sally for the first time, I ventured out. Across the hall were Sue and Kathy; next door to them were Amy and Pam. Dale was down the hall a bit farther.

In 10 minutes flat, we were up to speed on each other’s lives. High school seemed a million years behind us. If any day in life affords us the opportunity to erase the Etch-A-Sketch and start anew, this was it.

Our little pocket of newbies was nestled among students who were older and cooler: I felt intimidated by their blonde beauty, their high-heeled boots and their loud music, and by that I mean the entire “Rumors” album. To this day, I don’t much care for Fleetwood Mac.

We were our own clique, eating meals in the dining hall together and wandering in and out of each other’s rooms each evening. We talked a lot about boys and professors and calories. I wish I were as “tubby” now as I thought I was then.

After graduation, the inevitable happened. That Etch-A-Sketch gets shaken clean every few years. Most of us lost track.

But Facebook has a way of collapsing miles and time, and so last week four of us sat together at a table. I had seen Sue a few times in the years since, but I had not seen or heard from Kathy or Pam in 35 years.

It’s an odd thing, those first moments of reconnection. Do you pick up where you left off? Start over from scratch? How do you fill in the details of such a deep gap of time?

We started at the present and traveled backward. Among us there were two teachers and a grandparent. Six children and four careers. Houses and hobbies. And among the six of us with the closest bond in that hallway, four have had cancer. Dale passed away from hers.

We talked a lot about her and her love for the singer Billy Joel, and about the others not at the table with us. Sitting there for those few hours looking into the faces of these women, I was struck that, no matter how many years go by, our faces and expressions don’t change much. I’d sat across from these people at a hundred lunches and lounged on their beds and dorm room floors on a hundred nights, and here I was looking into the same friendly, animated faces. No matter what life gives or takes away, we usually keep that twinkle we showed the world when we were young.

One of my favorite lines from the film “The Big Chill” belongs to Nick, the bitter character played by William Hurt. As he and his friends are reminiscing about their college years, he says, “A long time ago, we knew each other for a short while.” Time had changed them all, he argued, and the common ground they once shared had crumbled.

That dorm we shared, Clyde Hall, is gone now. Whatever building has replaced it stands in the shadow of a lot of memories and friendships.

A bunch of stuff went down between my friends and me on that fifth floor – music and talking and dreaming. With all the time that’s passed, can we still call ourselves friends? Yes, of course we can.

Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.