This week we continue my nostalgic look back at my college days and discuss the great friendships I had some of which continue to this day.

Hi, this is Chris Young. Welcome to episode 61 of Contemplating Life.

This week I want to talk about some of the great friendships I had in my college days. As I mentioned last episode, this is a difficult one to write because it’s about people who are still an active part of my life. While I like these stories to be “tell all”, especially when it gives me a chance to confess some of my stupid behavior, some stories are better left private.

As I’ve mentioned in previous episodes, we didn’t have a regular cafeteria in the K-Building at the 38th St. campus of IUPUI. It was just a big lunch room with lots of tables and chairs. Adjacent to it was a vending machine room where you could get stale ham and cheese sandwiches, horrible pizza, snack food, and soft drinks. There was a microwave oven you could use to heat up whatever you purchased.

The room also became a hangout for a group of friends to socialize. Early in the morning someone would break out a deck of cards and start a euchre game. Sometimes the game would last until dinnertime. People would come and go and take your place if you had to go study or go to class.

There was a crazy guy named Mark who was a tall blonde-haired guy who talked way too loud and often said very embarrassing and misogynistic things that occasionally made you embarrassed to be at the same table with him. But except for his unfortunate lack of a filter, he was a really great guy and the life of the party.

There was another guy named Kevin who was fortunately much more restrained than Mark but still a fun guy. Very smart. I don’t recall what his major was.

There was a guy named Gilley who would come to school with a cup of coffee from White Castle that he had spiked with some sort of alcohol. Even at 10 AM, you could smell alcohol on his breath. Extremely intelligent and very fun to be around. A talented card player. My guess is he probably dropped out at some point because of his drinking but I don’t know that for a fact.

There were a few women in the group. Sadly I don’t remember most of their names. There was a friendly gal named Cindy who had short red hair and rode a motorcycle. We went out to the movies and to dinner a couple of times but it never got serious.

I’ve lost touch with all of these people. I’ve tried doing Google searches and Facebook searches but most of their names are just too common. You get lots of people with the same name.

We’ve already talked at length about my late friend Mike Gregory who was part of this motley crew.

There was a computer technology major named Frank Williams who was a good buddy. Computer technology is slightly different than computer science which was my major. The details aren’t important right now. Frank is an excellent keyboard player. He had his own band in college or shortly thereafter. I went with my friends Rich and Kathy to hear him play at some bar on the east side when time. I think Frank sees himself as a Billy Joel-type person. He played lots of Billy Joel’s songs and also could play a few Keith Emerson pieces from the band Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. Keith Emerson is my favorite rock ‘n’ roll keyboard player.

Frank liked to call me Christopher even though I repeatedly told him that my actual name is just Chris. To retaliate, I decided to start calling him Frankfurter. I told him, “If you can put a ‘topher’ on the end of my name I can put a ‘furter’ on the end of your name.” The nickname was especially appropriate for him because frequently he would bring a bag lunch of hot dogs. He would take two hot dogs, slice them lengthwise, and put them between two slices of white bread. He would then microwave the sandwich and load it up with copious amounts of ketchup and mustard. When he would bite into the sandwich, the ketchup and mustard would drip all over the place. It was a sight to behold.

After graduation, I kept in touch with him briefly. We had a little reunion at my house a few years after college one day when Mike Gregory was back in town for a visit. But then I lost touch with him for many years. Finally, a few years ago, we reconnected on Facebook. With a common name like Frank Williams, I didn’t think I’d ever find him but I finally did

He is still playing in a band. Last summer, they were playing at a church festival on the south side and I went to hear him. It was the first I’d seen him in probably 30 years. He is not the lead in the band. He just plays keyboards but he does sing lead vocals on some songs. The guitar player is the lead.

Frank sounded fine. The lead singer sounded okay. But for some reason, I don’t think their voices mix very well. I think I liked his band better but this one isn’t half bad. Anyway, it was still great to hear him and to talk to him for a few minutes after the performance. It’s great to be in touch with him via Facebook after all these years.

Frank had a girlfriend named Kay who also attended IUPUI. They had been dating since high school. Somewhere along the way in college, they broke up even though everyone thought they would be together forever. I was also able to connect to Kay on Facebook recently.

As I alluded to last episode, the most important and long-lasting friendship from my college days is with my dear friend Rich Logan. I met Rich in the CS 300 Assembly Language Programming class I talked about last week. We hit it off as friends immediately and it has lasted almost 50 years.

By the way, speaking of that assembly language class, I finally found my little green card. You can see an image of it in the YouTube version.

There was a rec room across the hall from the lunch room. It had about a half-dozen pinball machines, a foosball table, and several pool tables along with other tables for playing chess or other board games. Rich and I played pinball but I could only work one of the buttons so I would get on the left side of the machine and work the left flipper. Rich would fire the pinball on the right side and work the right flipper. I was never any good at it but we had lots of fun.

In the summer of 1976, there was a sci-fi movie named “Logan’s Run”. Because Rich’s last name is Logan, a bunch of us decided we needed to go see the movie together with him. Rich recalls that he was the only one of the group who had not yet seen the movie but I don’t think I had seen it either. As best as either of us can recall, it must have been in late August or early September 1976.

The problem was, how to get me to the movie. I called my mom using a payphone (no cell phones in those days) and told her a bunch of us wanted to go to a movie one afternoon. I asked her if Rich could come by, pick up my van, bring it back to IUPUI, and drive me to the movie. He would then return the van to my house then get back in his car and leave. My mom quickly agreed.

Rich loves telling the story about the first time he ever met my mom. He couldn’t believe that he could walk up there being a total stranger and say, “I’m here to get your van,” and she just handed him the keys and let him drive it away. He said, “I thought what kind of crazy lady is this that would trust me with her car and trust me to drive her disabled son to the movies when she had never met me before?”

I explained to Rich, “It probably wasn’t easy for her. She was probably really worried. But she trusted me and I trusted you and that was good enough. It’s also a testament to how far my mom would go to attempt to give me a life that was as normal as possible. It’s normal for a guy to want to go see a movie with his college friends. If that’s what it took to make that possible, she was going to do it.”

The movie was about a guy named Logan in a future where people were not allowed to live past the age of 30. At birth, they had a small glowing crystal embedded in the palm of their hand. As they aged, it would change colors. When you turned 30, your crystal began blinking red. You then had to participate in some ritual ceremony called “Carousel” in which people would be exploded in a grand spectacle. But they were told that a small percentage would be “renewed”. People in the audience would shout “Renew, Renew” as the victims exploded. But it seemed like no one ever knew anyone who actually was renewed. People who realized that the “Carousel” was actually a death sentence, would refuse to participate in the ceremony. They became so-called “runners”. Logan was a type of police officer known as a “Sandman”. It was his job to chase down runners and terminate them.

Logan was sent on an undercover mission. They turned his crystal blinking red to make him a runner even though he was still only in his mid-20s. He was supposed to track down an underground movement that would lead runners to a legendary place called “Sanctuary”. When Logan inquired, “When my mission is over, do I get my years back?” The computer that gave him the assignment refused to answer. So now Logan really was a runner.

After watching the movie, our buddy Mark decided to start calling Rich by the nickname “Runner” and he went by that nickname for quite a time. I don’t think I used it very much if at all except perhaps when we were all in the group.

There was a woman and a group named Kathy Willaert. At first, it was hard to get to know her. Rich described her as “the quiet, shy girl who was always reading a book.” Many in the group never bothered to try to get to know her. Fortunately one day Kathy and I set down together and had a very long heart-to-heart talk where I did get to know her well. Once you got to know her, she was an amazing person. But few people bothered to take the time to really listen to her and to get to know her. They just sort of wrote her off which was quite unfair.

Had I written her off as unapproachable, I would have lost out on an amazing friendship.

As I previously explained, my approach towards women was that anyone who showed any kindness was immediately categorized as a potential girlfriend. And once I got to know Kathy, she could have fallen into that category very easily except for one thing. Even though I think she was about 19 years old at the time, she did not have a driver’s license. I’m sad to say, that was a dealbreaker for me. So although I was quite fond of her, I never really considered her a potential girlfriend.

One of the people who took the time to get to know Kathy and to truly appreciate her was Rich. I’m pretty sure that Kathy went with all of us to see “Logan’s Run” and somehow I had speculated years later that that was the beginning of their relationship – their first sort of unofficial first date. But according to them, their first real date was to see a rerelease of Disney’s “Fantasia.” According to Wikipedia, that rerelease was in April 1977 but I have no idea when they actually saw it.

When the gang learned that the two were dating, there was lots of gossiping about it. At one point, the gang witnessed Rich and Kathy disagreeing about something. After they left the room, someone said (well I’m embarrassed to say it might’ve been me that said it), they speculated that it wouldn’t last two weeks. Anyway, whoever said it first, me or somebody else, everyone agreed. Well, when that statement got back to them, they didn’t appreciate it. Over 45 years later they are still together and they still argue. When I reminded Rich of that recently, he said, “Yes we just stayed married to spite everyone. We are still waiting on our pool winnings.” Although we never did wager any money, if we had, Rich and Kathy would’ve taken the lot.

There was a bit of tension between the three of us. I grew jealous of the time they spent together. I think they thought I was jealous because Rich had stolen Kathy away from me or we were competing for her attention. But that wasn’t the case. As I explained before, Kathy’s inability to drive made her ineligible even though I really liked her. What really happened was Kathy got between me and my best buddy. I was jealous that she was stealing Rich away from me – not that Rich was keeping Kathy from me. But we worked it all out and we have been friends for decades now. There have been good times and bad times and we have shared them all together.

Sometime in March or April 1979, my disability got worse. I developed congestive heart failure and landed in the hospital for two weeks. Rich and Kathy visited me frequently and continue to visit me nearly every time I’m in the hospital. Rich also came to visit as I was recovering at home.

I remember one day we tried to hook up my Atari 2600 game system to my bedroom TV so I could play video games with him while I was in bed. We finally got it all hooked up and working and then I realized I couldn’t work the controller while in bed. My hands were too weak. So he played for a while and I watched. About 30 minutes later I realized I had fallen asleep. When I woke up, he was just quietly sitting by my bedside keeping me company.

When I was finally able to get out of bed briefly, he came by for a visit and we sat in my family room. He said he had a favor to ask. He wanted me to be the Best Man at his wedding to Kathy. I was honored of course. I explained I wasn’t sure I would be well enough in time for the wedding. At the time I could only be out of bed a couple of hours a day. He told me he had a plan B. Frank would be his backup best man.

My mom took me to the rehearsal the day before the wedding. It was in a Protestant church used by Rich’s family. Kathy, her sister who was maid of honor, and I were all nonpracticing Catholics in a Protestant wedding. Rich and Kathy’s parents, my mom, and perhaps some other family members were there for the rehearsal. There couldn’t have been more than 8 people in the church. Rich and I were at the altar. Kathy’s father led her up the aisle. The preacher said, “Wait a minute. Don’t you people know you’re supposed to stand up when the bride comes down the aisle? This is your rehearsal too. You need to rehearse your part as the audience.” So everybody stood up.

I turned to Rich and said, “That’s the way it is with these religious people. You never know if you’re supposed to stand up, sit down, kneel, cross yourself, or whatever.” We both cracked up. It was especially funny because that’s what Protestants often say when they come to a Catholic Church. Here we had three former Catholics in a Protestant wedding and I was feeding the same lines that the Protestants always say about Catholics.

My only official duty as the best man was to hand Rich the ring. We practiced many many times. He would hold out his hand palm up beneath my hand and I would drop the ring into his hand. I did not want to embarrass myself by dropping the ring.

On June 23, 1979, Rich Logan and Kathy Willaert were married and I was fortunate enough to be there as the best man. Frank was on standby. I successfully dropped the ring into Rich’s hand as we had practiced. Kathy’s sister handed her the ring and they dropped it. It rolled all over the floor. I’m not generally the kind of person who takes pleasure in someone else’s misfortune. But I was so happy that if a ring was going to get dropped, it wasn’t me who dropped it.

They had a small reception at Rich’s parents’ house and in his backyard. Frank got them a particularly nice wedding present. He knew they didn’t have a honeymoon planned so he rented a fancy suite in a downtown hotel. He ordered a steak and egg breakfast for them even though it wasn’t on the menu. Together we chipped in some cash so that they could have some spending money in addition to whatever other gift I got for them. I don’t recall what my wedding present was.

That day, I spent a total of five hours out of bed between the wedding and the reception afterward. It was the longest I had been out of bed in nearly 3 months.

As mentioned in other episodes, I went to see the original Star Wars with the Logans. We went back a year later to see it again. We saw all of the other Star Wars films except for “Rogue One”. We couldn’t go to that one because I was in the hospital getting my trach installed in 2016. A little over a year ago they released “Rogue One” in theaters and so we went back and saw it together even though we had all seen it on streaming or DVD. That completed the set. We’ve seen every Star Wars movie in the theater together – some of them more than once.

The three of us frequently went to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on qualifying days and had a wonderful time there together. We saw many track records broken on several of those days.

Another fond memory… Rich and I went to a very memorable Colts game on Halloween night in 1988 against the Denver Broncos. It was carried on Monday Night Football. The Colts clobbered Denver 55-23. Our fans began taunting John Elway every time he made a mistake shouting “El-way, El-way” to mock him. Longtime Colts fans will tell you it was one of the greatest games we ever played and Rich and I were there to see it in person. It was a great event and a fond memory.

In those days, my family owned a cabin on a lake in Brown County. Rich and Kathy were frequent guests there. The YouTube version of this podcast shows some of the fun times we had at the lake. The video is from 1984.

We have seen countless movies and been to many sporting events – way more than I can remember. I have lots of other stories that I will save for appropriate times.

Rich is the brother I never had. Kathy is a very dear friend. I could not ask for more loyal caring and loving people in my life. They really are extraordinary.

It hasn’t always been smooth sailing. We’ve had our ups and downs. Our misunderstandings and disagreements. Even the production of this episode has been a challenge that we had to work through together.

When I used to teach Catholic inquiry classes at my church, there was a lesson about Old Testament prophets. While we normally think of a prophet as someone who predicts the future, a big part of the job is to be a spokesperson for God. Sort of like a Press Secretary. Typically a prophet’s message is to call you back to God when you go astray. Most of the prophets spoke to the entire chosen people but occasionally a prophet’s guidance is personal as in the case of the prophet Nathan who is best buddies with King David. Nathan didn’t hesitate to tell David what an ass he was being for having an affair with Bathsheba. I teach that sometimes we are called to be prophets to our friends or to have them be prophets to us and call us back when we go astray.

That’s the kind of relationship I have with the Logans. They love me enough to let me know when I screw up and they know that because I respect them and cherish our friendship I will listen to them and try to do better. There are lots of examples. One day I told a horrendously sexist joke in a computer class and later Rich called me out saying simply, “I thought your comments in class today were out of character.” I will never forget those exact words. The phrase “out of character” never had more meaning than it did that day. What he was saying with those three simple words is, “The Chris that I know and love isn’t the kind of person who would say such a thing. The Chris I know and love is better than that.” He was right. That may have been who I was in that moment but it’s not who I normally am and it’s not who I aspire to be. True friends see the best in us and motivate us to be the person they know we can be.

The occasions when the Logans have been a prophet who called me to be my better self far outnumber the occasions when I’ve returned the favor.

Scripture says “A faithful friend is a life-saving elixir…” Sirach 6:16. I’ve been blessed by many such friends.

I’ve been running with Logan for nearly 50 years and look forward to many more years of Logan’s Run and a blessed friendship.

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I will see you next week as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe.