Why Do Conceptions Of Friendship Vary?

     If the title of this post sounds like a question asked of Liberal Arts college students, you are absolutely correct. I was posed this exact question 40 years ago by a Harvard educated professor at Dickinson College. The class had the entire term to consider it and numerous works from the best minds of sociological thought to reference. There was Emile Durkheim and Max Weber to name two who we were required to be mentioned in these term papers.

     Looking back on the question now I'll simply reference what I recall growing up in Ridgewood and what I have deduced about my classmates since that time. Friendship has to do with the side of town you grow up on, the religious institution you were born into, birth order, your role models, and some luck. I was lucky enough to live next to Willard School and could always see who was on the playing fields and what they were playing. I would stay away when the game was Kill-The-Guy-With-The-Ball. A truly brutalizing amusement which pitted grades against one another. If some variety of baseball or touch football was being played I had no problem venturing out.

     Since those reckless days I doubt the game is played much or anybody fondly recalls a particularly bone-crunching pile on tackle. It's all too crazy to revel in, as opposed to tackle football. The RHS football players are a very close-knit bunch to this day. I'm not a doctor so I can guess about any injuries they might have sustained which are lurking in their futures. Once again I feel fortunate that I didn't get involved. One concussion in a lifetime is probably enough and I experienced that during the summer of my eighth year on this planet. Truth be told I did player tackle football in the fifth grade and my parents took the precaution of having me cleared to play by the same Dr. Branigan who tended to me in the hospital after my mishap on a bicycle. He was an institution in Ridgewood and no truer words could be spoken about him than those from his college yearbook:
   

     "To know him is to like him."

 
     The good doctor said he didn't see anything wrong with me and set me loose to crack skulls with the other ten and eleven year olds. I was one season and then done; the heat of summer workouts and the tackling never appealed. Though many I played with continued on through high school and a few even in college. A good size contingent remain friends to this day, correspond via email, and regularly attend our reunions. Was it the athletics, the east side of Ridgewood they lived on, or something else I can't put my finger on? It doesn't matter. Conceptions of friendship will vary and the reason why is that some people believe their relationships are important enough for them to want to maintain them. Others just don't. The Beatles said it best: