Where Did All My Old Friends Go

 Summers of long ago were simpler. The mists of time remembered them as cooler, the evening blue hour was longer, the streets were safer, and we young girls, on the brink of womanhood, had our entire lives in front of us.  

We imagined ourselves so sophisticated now that we were old enough to hold summer jobs. I was a tour guide through the local newspaper. My girlfriends, too, had summer jobs, salesgirl at the bakery, file clerk at dad’s office. Our own money to do with as we wished. We were rich in those days, with that youthful magical feeling that everything wonderful could and would happen to us one day soon. 

And the summers’ Sunday night CYO dances cemented our friendships forever. Dressed in our light cotton dresses we met up and walked to church together wearing our scandalously high one inch heels. I would walk to Loretta’s house. “Hi, Mrs. Cavaleri, is Loretta ready?” Her beloved mom would roll her eyes at our ministrations. “You girls are beautiful. Your skin is so fresh, it needs nothing. Look, where drops of makeup took the finish off the dresser. What are you putting on your faces?” She would laugh and we would sheepishly snicker. Further down the block we would call on Angela, “Hi Mrs. Bartoli, is Angela ready”.  She worriedly admonished us to watch out for each other. And still later we would pick up Francesca, along with her cousin Rita, who was spending the summer while her parents were in Italy. 

The summer nights would watch as we walked down the tree lined street toward the church center that sponsored the CYO dances. As we sauntered, we bid hello to the neighbors who sat on their front porches, trying to catch an evening breeze and keep cool. “Hello, Mr. Infanti, Mrs. Infanti”. Parents kept their vigils on the front porches in those days. All the parents reported to each other, safeguarding each other’s daughters. We were, after all, their flowers, their princesses. 

Together we strolled, wondering which of the boys on whom we had a crush that week would be at the dance too. We spoke the usual nonsense of our age. “My aunt just got back from Rome”. . . “really, what did she bring you”. . . “do you think Tony will be there tonight”. . . “will your brother be there” . . . “is my dress too long”. . . “I thought Andy had a crush on Angela”. . . “my mom won’t let me get my ears pierced”. Oh, the laments of our days.

Our lives then went no further than looking forward to summers with each other. But summers wandered into fall and the years traveled with us away from the blocks of our youth. College, careers, husbands, children. Our friendships accordianed. We would lose touch, but eventually would find each other again. Time moved on, careless about what became of us. Mothers became grandmothers, retirement arrived, sometimes widowhood. In the gloaming of our lives, we now attend each other’s funerals, grateful for the memories and sorry for the loss. Harking back to yesterdays, there's a little tune that wanders through the corridors of my mind; don’t recall by whom:

Oh, oh, I remember summers,

but that was very long ago;

I'd sit and talk with the gals I knew around the block,

where did all my old friends go?

Over the years the neighborhood’s members became ghosts. The last time I walked down the block, I couldn’t recall the name of the family who lived on the corner, or the name of the widow whose daughter went to school with us. New families replaced the old ones. Looking for my friends’ old homes, I realized it was we girls who had become the shadows. As it should be. Where we were from was no longer who we were, but where we were from made us who we are.