(Editor’s note: Welcome to Living Eulogies. All recollections are accurate in the author’s mind only. Apologies in advance to everyone who has different recollection of the same events. Send all complaints to your local Girl Scouts chapter. Do not use in shower.)
For today’s Living Eulogy, I wanted to try something a little bit different. For most of these so far, I have some pretty deep and important recollections from which to pull to craft the narrative about what this person meant in my life, with the possible exception of the one I did on Amy and that dance in sixth-grade.
But what about someone who was a part of my life in a much less deep way? There are a ton of people throughout my days with whom I’ve had just a momentary encounter with who has made a difference in my life. What about someone more toward that end of the spectrum.
So I scanned the list of people who are members of the Facebook group for my graduating class in search of a name that would spark something in me.
That’s when I saw Kate Blumner. I haven’t thought of Kate in a long, long time, but seeing her name brought back an event that made me smile.
THE ORIGIN STORY
Welcome to Living Eulogies
When my classmate Sarah died late last year, I realized just how much she was a part of the fabric of my childhood. And that was interesting to me. I mean, were my life a movie, Sarah wouldn’t be anything close to the lead actress. She would probably be considered an extra in many ways,…
Kate and I were friends early in elementary school, but not early enough that it was OK to have girl friends if you were a boy. These were different times, well before any serious debate over gender roles and identity. For the most part, once you got passed kindergarten or first grade, boys were friends with boys and girls were friends with girls for the rest of elementary school.
That wasn’t true for Kate and I for a while. We liked to talk. We liked to hang out with each other in school. It wasn’t that Kate was a tomboy. She wasn’t. It wasn’t that I was the female equivalent of a tomboy, whatever that term is. I wasn’t. We were just … two people. Imagine that?
And so one day the idea was floated that I could go to Kate’s house after school.
This was something we both were really excited about — at least, we were both really excited when we were talking to each other. But when it came time to even think about how our gender-specific friend groups would react, it was a little more complicated. I’m not sure what Kate thought she’d face having an actual boy over to her house after school, but I knew my guy friends would have been relentless torturers had they found out.
So we devised a plan.
I don’t remember the specifics of The Plan. I know it involved a cover story with a note to the teacher that I would be picked up from school with Kate by Kate’s mom, but there was some obfuscation as to why that was so and where we were headed.
I remember that, when the day arrived, I was nervous about how The Plan would play out. This was some serious Mission: Impossible shit, long before Tom Cruise got involved. But it went off without a hitch. No one asked any questions. Kate’s mom picked me up. We went to Kate’s house and did things friends do. For whatever reason, I remember she had a Spirograph — one of those geometric drawing things — that I thought was super-cool.
All too soon, my mother arrived to pick me up, and Kate and I said our goodbyes.
We’d stay friends in school for a while longer, but I don’t remember any more visits to each other’s houses. Maybe there were and we just got so good at The Plan that it’s escaped my memory. Maybe we succumbed to the gender issues of the day.
I think about that here today and wonder if maybe kids today are different, if maybe this is one area they actually have it easier. Having homeschooled both my boys, I’m not an expert on what public school gender norms are these days.
Whatever real-life is like today, I’m glad I had a friend like Kate back in the day, and I’m glad we got away with The Plan without being the subject of any ridicule just because we had different plumbing but still liked to hang out.
So today, I raise a glass to Kate Blumner and our secret visit! Hear Hear!
Who should be the next Living Eulogy? Email me at johnagliata@gmail.com.
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