JULIE — SEVILLE, 1982.

Some history: As good fortune would have it, Julie’s mom and Toby’s mon got together and suggested that Julie look us up in Sevilla when she got there. We did not manage to meet until November of 1982 when we attended a Thanksgiving gathering at the American Consulate. As we chatted, we told her we were moving to a new apartment in the Barrio de Santa Cruz on Calle Mezquita. She asked what number, and it turned out that we were about to move across the hall from her.

She was 22. Sharon was directing the Center for Cross Cultural Study. Julie soon began teaching English to Spanish students and eventually became a founding partner in Academic Programs Abroad. Its success allowed Paco — that’s me — to retire.

We flew to Boston and Ubered to her walk-up in Brookline. No one picks up at Logan anymore. At the top of the stairs she called out, “Oh, the Foersters are here!” and came down to help with our bags. She has long since become family.

As always, we walked Beacon Street to Barcelona, the tapas restaurant that we love. We over-order every time — patatas bravas, croquettes, jamón Ibérico, tortilla española, chipirones. The conversation inevitably drifts back to Seville, to the duende of that time — that magic we felt when life seemed wide open and unending.

Forty years disappear over tapas.

Jonathan wants us to move back. We are planning two months there in 2027. The future, strangely, now feels like revisiting the past.

RON & COLLEEN — A LIFETIME 

From Brookline we met Ron and Colleen in Winchester and drove to their Rockport beach house overlooking Cape Ann. We have been visiting every summer for 25 years.

Ron was my high school football teammate. We roomed together at the University of Vermont on scholarships neither of us would have earned without sports. Colleen — the campus beauty, daughter of a football coach — somehow chose Ron. Sharon and Colleen became inseparable and to this day are best friends. Ron and I were already welded together by youth.

The four of us married in 1968. (In fact that’s I how remet Sharon. I went to the Pan Am building where her mother told be she worked to ask her to their wedding.) We lived near by and our lives moved along in sync, our first born were just 3 months apart. But then we decided to join VISTA and were assigned to go to Texas. Our lease ran out, and so we moved in with them until we would go back to NJ and then onto Texas. Lots of bonding happened as the four of us became new parents.

Later when the kids got older. we traveled to Europe with them. We drove a van through Portugal and Austria where we swam in the Mediterranean, climbed a glacier and ate amazing food. Years later, the four of us celebrated our 25th anniversaries in New Orleans, wandered Tuscany and cruised the Danube. We never once said, “We shouldn’t travel together again.”

So needless to say, our frequent visits have always been filled with reminsnicing ,lots of laughter and of course great eating. There’s nothing like Regina’s Pizza, lobster rolls, Colleen’s spetzle and Ron’s Mom’s spaghetti sauce and mile high soft serve ice cream.

 PETER & TOBY — THE FORK IN THE ROAD.  

Some history: In 1969 Sharon and Toby were the “new, hot” language teachers at Lexington High. Peter was headed to medical school; I was starting law school. The first weekend of the semester, we were invited to dinner — boned chicken breast stuffed with ham, cheese, asparagus, topped with Ritz cracker crumbs and butter and baked in white wine. That was all it took. Sharon swears it was a pasta dinner and then the stuffed chicken breast came later, but the point is that friendship sometimes begins with a meal. Ours has lasted more than fifty years.

We always take the Bay State Cruise fast ferry from Boston Harbor to Provincetown on Cape Cod. We have been visiting them in Wellfleet since 1969. We have watched boats drift across the bay to harvest clams and oysters. From their back window and deck, we have seen the tides rise and fall, amazing sunsets. Peter makes his famous linguini with clams every summer. A must! As you might guess our love language is food. Speaking of food, we have eaten our way through Sicily, Paris, Seville, Croatia, Slovenia, Cancun, Greece and Sardinia. In Sicily we repeatedly missed a sign for Catania and ended up back at the same gas station three times, the attendant slapping his forehead: “Madone! We still laugh about it.

Yogi Berra said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

We did. Every time.

UNION CITY — WHERE I BEGAN

After Cape Cod, our next stop was New Jersey. We take the Acela fast train down the coast into New Jersey. This was my first return since my brother, Michael, died last year. I am remembering how his son, Michael could not bring himself to let him go. 

Some history: I think of myself as a Union City guy.
As the train crossed the Hudson River, nostalgia rose like tidewater. Union City sits on the Palisades overlooking Manhattan. Forty-eight by seven blocks. One of the most densely populated U.S. cities. Italian, Irish, German, Armenian and Cuban immigrants were our bus drivers, milkmen, firemen, Good Humor ice cream vendors — my father among them.

I walked those streets endlessly because we had no car. Played stickball, touch football, three-man basketball all in the streets or school yards.  l wore holes in my Keds. I learned toughness from tougher guys. Although I tried, I was never really tough. My tough guy friends’ mothers loved me because I was willing to eat any previously unknown foods like conch and pig skins, delighting the Italian mamas in particular, assuring Frankie to be invited back again.

LEGENDS & REUNIONS

At the Legends of Hudson County Basketball luncheon, I was transported back to Emerson High School my freshman year — two free throws that won a game and to cheer leader, Mariann Iodice’s, patting me on my knee as I sat next to her on the bench. I still remember that pat.

Then came our 64th high school reunion. Twenty-two of us, with faces aged but familiar. I read a piece I had written about our class. We were born during World War II, raised on Elvis and Chuck Berry. We danced across gym floors, terrified and hopeful all at once. I remember Steck’s ice cream parlor with the jukebox playing “Only You” and all those romantic heartbreaker songs. Then there was the photo of our senior trip to the United Nations, arms around each other, convinced we were ready to take on the world. And somehow, we were.

Our yearbook theme was *“Until We Meet Again.”*

RETURNING HOME — NEW LIFE.

Back at my  sister Arlene’s house, I note she is the person who keeps the family together  My nephew Michael Scott cooks a feast in his cellar for all the family. I meet Haley nine months old. Life beginning again. 

The next day we saw a Broadway show, the Buena Vista Social Club and ate at

Carmine’s raucous, to die for Italian humongous platefuls restaurant. On the drive back through the Lincoln Tunnel my brother-in-law exited into Union City. For a moment, I was 17 again. My parents were alive. All my buddies were there.  Roosevelt Stadium buzzed. The Ichiban bar still let us drink there underage. Like I never had left.

Memory compresses decades into seconds.

BROOKE — FOREVER YOUNG. 

The day after returning to Austin, our granddaughter Brooke — 22, the age Julie was when we met — arrived for the Austin City Limits festival with her friend Ella. 

They were up at 5 a.m. for flights from California, then attending ACL til ten and then out until 3 a.m. at clubs on South Congress. Same routine next day. In between a late brunch, we over heard them talking about living in New York or visiting Asia or  graduate school plans. All the forks in their roads not yet taken.

Their optimism filled the house.

Watching them, I felt something curious: not envy, not regret — but renewal. Through them, we are young again. Through them, time moved forward rather than away.

NOW

Now the house is quiet.

I feel like I am listening to a brass band winding slowly through the Barrio de Santa Cruz during Semana Santa — mournful, beautiful, aware of history.

Three weeks of memories feel like yesterday. And yet most are decades old.

Friends tell me, “Live in the present.” I try. But writing this is how I reconcile with the past. The present will take care of itself.

How many Celebrations of Life can I stand to attend.

Perhaps the ache comes because my life turned out better than I ever imagined. I don’t want to lose any of it.

Jim Croce wrote in “Time in a Bottle”:

*If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I’d like to do
Is to save every day till eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you.*
If I had Sharon in that bottle, I would pour in everyone else too.

Time goes by.

And so do I.

But through our friends and family — 

We remain forever young.  ‘