Divergent Memories

A number of my high school friends have joined Facebook in the past couple of week. Suddenly, I'm hearing from people I haven't thought of in years.

I got a note from the guy, we'll call him P, who was first flute to my first oboe. He's currently living and teaching English in Beijing. He was two years older than I, and I thought we had something going on.

I remember, with a bit of embarrassment, a band tour we went on where several parents drove cars filled with students. My mother was one of those drivers; P and I were two of the passengers. I remember necking with him for half an hour or so of the trip. (In retrospect, I cannot believe my mother never said anything to me about proper behavior. But then, this is the woman who said, "When you were 14, I didn't know what to do with you, so I just washed my hands of you.")

P remembers the trip also, it turns out. When I mentioned in my return e-mail that I was going to visit my mother, he said, "I remember a band trip we took where I rode with your mother. She explained to me the difference between "skim" and "scan" in reading."

Wait. Were we on the same tour? In the same car?

I guess we didn't have something going on, after all.