Two Friends

Fifty years later, things are the same and yet different.

I run into my friend Eric occasionally.  I knew him at church camp after 7th grade, then ran into him ten years later when I moved to Goffstown, where I have been for over forty years. He grew up here, before it quadrupled in size. He is one of those people who remembers the details of folks he knew back in school.  He remembers me as a math guy, remarkable since 7th grade church camp is not usually a place where that is apparent, plus attending a math event five years later and hearing other people talk about me, even though I had left for William and Mary. That's still how he remembers me.  Math guy. He wonders why I didn't go into that. It's doubly odd, because he doesn't remember the guy who was far superior to me, Larry.  Larry was PhD MIT in physics and ended up working at IBM research in low-temperature ceramics or something. Way out of my league.

I also run into my friend John, manager of the small supermarket kitty-corner across the street from the house Eric grew up in. I graduated from high school with John, but never had any classes with him. When I moved here, it took me a while to place who he was, though I knew I recognised him. He remembers me as a folksinger, and when we stop to talk, still mentions how much he liked listening to me then. He thinks I should have gone into that.

Those are CP Snow's culture #1 and culture #2.  He later added a third, the social sciences, which is how I eventually ended up earning my daily bread.  I fell into it, I don't really have the knack.  It's a long story.  Eric and John are probably both right.  I could have gone into math ( it would have been number theory or transforms) or music/composition/performance - though that would have to have been a sideline unless I got very lucky. I went into something that requires more emotional control and compassion, neither of which are strong suits of mine.  Most of my male friends are engineers or scientists.*   But...the people I talk to at church are strongly in the music performance side. I'm pretty recognisable in the congregation for harmonising behind you wherever you are sitting.

Thus at one level there is a complete disconnect from my childhood self, and at another I am just about exactly what people would have expected.  People at reunions comment with some amazement how similar I am to what they knew (I don't find that entirely complimentary, but I understand it comes from my group socialisation personality as a force of nature). Yet people who catch up with me by correspondence have the opposite amazement, that I didn't end up where they thought. Either way.

Here's something I have learned: when you can do everything, you can't do anything.  I made a living, but never made much money. If I had to do over again, I have no idea how I would fix that.

For the record, my history-major son makes his living with lots of numbers, and my math-team son makes his living in the creative arts. Where was my wife in all this?  Sort of the same thing. Majored in Biology and Anthropology - Cultures #2 and #3 - but made her living as a librarian, very much Culture #1. Don't ever try to play the dictionary game with her.

*The major exception would be an attorney friend who has 3 of 4 science  children, not to mention his wife and his father. So not much of an exception, really.  Sort of a Culture #2 carrier.