*** Of This And That In The Old 1960s North Adamsville Neighborhood-Those Pale Blue Eyes, Revisited 

 

A YouTube film clip to set the mood for this sketch.

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Not all adventures in social networking lead to good results and happy endings, although don’t blame the Internet or the fact of the Internet as a communication tool for bringing people together on that. People, men and women in serious and unserious relationships, have been screwing them up without that technological help ever since Adam and Eve, maybe before, so back off. I have a story to tell about how the Internet brought two fellow classmates from the North Adamsville Class of 1964, Sam Lowell and Melinda Loring, together, how they started out a relationship sparked by the Internet but were able to mess things up as if that instrumentality never existed. Needless to say the pair are no longer together after a short stormy affair, although they both have admitted to me individually that they still believed that it was written in the stars that they belonged together. But that good hope sentiment sometimes doesn’t mean a thing if the couple can’t abide each other’s presence, couldn’t seem to connect the dots. Such situations happen more than one might think so let’s look at how things unfolded and how I got wind of what went down.         

Despite the sad story of Sam and Melinda I have spent not a little time lately touting the virtues of the Internet in allowing me and the members of the North Adamsville Class of 1964, or what is left of it, the remnant that has survived and is findable with the new technologies (some will never be found by choice or by being excluded from the “information super-highway” that they have not been able to navigate), to communicate with each other some fifty years and many miles later on a class website recently set up to gather in classmates for our 50^th anniversary reunion. I had noted in earlier sketches my own successes with this website in being able to tout a guy whose photos of my old childhood neighborhood send me spinning down memory lane, another about an old corner boy and our Adventure car hop misadventures looking for the heart of Saturday night, writing a tribute to our classmates fallen in Vietnam, and in answering a perplexing question about what I saw as my role as a commentator on the site. I admit I had to marvel at some of the communications technology that makes our work a lot easier than back in the day. The Internet was only maybe a dream, a mad monk scientist far-fetched science fiction dream then as we struggle with three by five cards and archaic Dewey Decimal systems.

I also admitted in one of those sketches that for most of these fifty years since graduation I had studiously avoided returning to the old town for any past class reunions but this one I had wanted to attend, the reasons which not need detain us here. Or I should say rather wanted to attend once the reunion committee was able to track me down and invite me to attend. Or a better “rather” to join a NA64.com website run by a wizard webmaster, Donna, who was also our class Vice-President to keep up to date on progress for that reunion.

Part of the reason I did join the class site was to keep informed about upcoming events but also as is my wont to make commentary about various aspects of the old hometown, the high school then, and any other tidbit that my esteemed fellow classmates might want to ponder after all these years. All this made simple as pie by the act of joining. Once logged in one is provided with a personal profile page complete with space for private e-mails, story-telling, various vital statistics like kids and grandkids, and space for the billion photos of that progeny, mostly it seems for those darling grandkids that seem to pop up everywhere.  Additionally, there is a section, a general comment section, the “Message Forum” page, where one and all can place material they think of general interest to the class as a whole. I have used that page more than once over the past several months.  

A while back, a few months ago now, I went on to the class website to check out a new addition to the list of those who had joined the site recently. We can use our personal settings to be informed of that kind of information on a more or less frequent basis. The guy who had just joined was a guy I did not know but I had seen around the school and so I was ready to click off the site (by the way  you would have seen almost everybody in the four years you were there with one thing or another even though the class had baby-boomer times over 500 students). Then I noticed that Sam Lowell  had placed a comment in the “Message Forum” section about Melinda Loring and how she had recently as a result of slipping in an indoor swimming pool up in Epping, New Hampshire,  while exercising had broken her right hip requiring surgery. We were asked to send Melinda best wishes message for a speedy recovery on her profile page.

Now I knew Sam Lowell from high school, had been a teammate of his on the indoor and outdoor track teams, and had hung around with him most of junior and senior years. I had, when Sam joined the website in November of 2013 shortly I had, sent him some private e-mails and we had maintained an exchange of messages about the old days and about what had been happening since then. I had not heard from him or seen anything listed about him for a few months before his Melinda announcement. I do not remember him knowing Melinda Loring back in school although we both knew who she was. I remember that we had both commented at one time back then that she was a  definite “fox” in the language of the hormonal schoolboy 1960s night  but “unapproachable” to ragamuffin boys like us. Sam had not mentioned being in touch with her on the site in any of our communications, and I knew that he lived in Holden here in Massachusetts and that Melinda listed her home town as up near the White Mountains in New Hampshire. Most importantly I knew that Sam had been married to the same woman, Laura, for about thirty-five years. So I sent him a private e-mail message asking “what gives with Melinda?” and how he came to be the guy who placed a notice about her condition on the “Message Forum” page. In return he asked for my Internet e-mail because he wanted to explain some things without going on the site. I knew something was up.

I also got more, much more, than I bargained for so hear me out. It seems that Sam was really gung-ho about going to and being a part of this 50^th anniversary class reunion. He had gone to many of previous ones at 5, 10, 25, and 40 years but last fall he had not heard anything about planning for a 50^th reunion so he, like many of our generation who are the least bit Internet savvy these days, created an event page on Facebook looking for interested classmates and asking whether any plans were afoot. Melinda subsequently sent him a message on that event page asking what he knew of the doings. Sam sent her back a message about what little he knew and that he was prepared to organize something if nothing was in the works but forgot to give his name. She replied “who are you?” And that was their start. They exchanged a blizzard (Sam’s word) of e-mails over the next several day telling each other about what they had been up to over the last 50 years. Melinda had been a professor of education at various colleges, most recently at the University of New Hampshire and was still plodding away at that profession. Sam had been many things over the years, including teaching, but was at this time a lawyer working mainly out of his house on appeals cases. During this time Sam, through a separate source found out that there was already a class website in existence, informed Melinda, and they both joined the site over the next few days.       

Somehow this blizzard of e-mails morphed into some insipid cyberspace kindred spirit torch-bearing. Something was driving them forward. Eventually the e-mail system became too slow for their eight million questions for each and their attraction to each other so the ubiquitous cellphone became their mode of communication. Well the long and short of it was that after a blizzard of calls they arranged to meet for dinner in Lowell and discuss things. Melinda, twice married but now single and available asked Sam about his marital status during their exchanges. Sam kind of, no, he definitely fudged on that saying he was “separated” from Laura in order to see what way the winds were blowing with Melinda. Melinda accepted that explanation at face value, then. They met. They met and some spark was lit right from the first, hands touching and smiles glowing immediately. Maybe it was that they had gone to the same high school together, maybe it was the same tough growing up poor and hungry profiles which they exchanged, maybe it was the six million things they had in common like an interest Russian literature and history, maybe it was their connection in the education field, and maybe knowing Sam it was Melinda’s pale blue eyes but a spark was lit. They agreed that after fifty years of “missing” each other they had to play the thing out.

And so they did meeting for dinner many times, going to Washington together for a few days, and fatally winding up at Melinda’s house in New Hampshire one night, one cold night, one night when the wine flowed and, well, you can figure it out. But for Sam, almost from the start there was always that nagging lie about his relationship with Laura (and also the need to lie to her about his whereabouts on many occasions whenhe was with Melinda) which as time went on he began to kind of half tell Melinda about.

Needless to say Melinda, a woman according to Sam, who was serially monogamous and sought exclusive possession of her men became furious about Sam’s real relationship with Laura. As Sam gave more details to Melinda while both developed strong feeling of affection for each other Melinda more and more pressed the issue of Sam’s fully leaving Laura. He would hedge, saying he needed more time. Then Melinda’s pool accident and subsequent surgery occurred and hence the notice provided by him on the site.

That is where I entered the picture and contacted Sam. But as I learned from Sam later as thing unwound this recovery time was also a time when Sam, who would go up to New Hampshire frequently (telling Laura he was helping out an old classmate), to help Melinda out around her house, take her to appointments and get her out of the home felt more like a care-giver than a lover. He made what became the fatal mistake of telling Melinda that change in feelings and she because furious despite her condition. See Sam also told me he was getting cold feet about his future with Melinda who was talking more and more about them living together. Shortly after Melinda had recovered enough to be able to drive on her own they agreed to meet one night for dinner in Newburyport and discuss where they were going. That night the sparks flew, there were acrimonious arguments, and finally Sam walked out furious at some of the things Melinda said. That was the last they saw of each other in person although there were a few bitter e-mails and cellphone calls before Melinda closed the curtain[CL1] [CL2]  down on the affair. So there is the story, the sad story and no happy ending.              

 I will finish up this tale by posting the e-mail that I sent Melinda after Sam posted his message about her condition (and after he had told me the details of their relationship but before I learned of their split). See, after seeing her class yearbook photograph, seeing some photos of her taken recently, hearing Sam’s story of their affair, I decided that maybe I should make myself known, known as an old-time admirer. And as a guy with no strings attached. Here goes:                          

 

“Melinda –I hope that this note finds you convalescing quickly from your recent hip surgery. I also hope that your cats, Mickie, Ell, Queenie, and Jinx that you have placed pictures of on your profile page comfort to you at this time.  I too am a cat-lover who has just lost a cat, Willie Boy, who was my shadow around the house and is now buried in the back yard. I will have his spirit watching out for you too.

I know several years ago when I had my knee replacement and was laid up for weeks and house-bound I appreciated getting notes and messages to see me through. I thought I would tell you a little “secret” story from our high school days that might cheer you up.

In the spring of our junior year I had something of a “crush” on you. From a distance for sure since I did not know you, did not have any classes with you, or anything like that but had only seen you around the school in the corridors and such so I was not sure how I would approach you. Moreover I was pretty shy then and kind of bedraggled, a ragamuffin, so I was very hesitant to make my “move” since you were such a college-bound looking girl with your cashmere sweaters and frilly skirts.

As you might know if you looked at my profile photos I was on the track team although you may not have known there was even such a team at school. In the pring of 1963 after school in the boys’ locker room I heard a couple of guys from the team mention your name and how “hot” you were (not that word then I don’t think but you know what I mean). I used that opening as a way to get some “grapevine” intelligence about whether you had a boyfriend or something. So I asked them. Both their replies were basically “forget it, she is unapproachable.” Naturally given everything I just said I backed off and moved on to the next possibility as young guys did then (maybe now too). I wonder now seeing your photos what would have happened had I been braver then. I hope you like the story and it makes you feel better.

 

BTW when I read your comment on Dave Meagher’s “In Memory” page I noticed that you had gone to the junior prom with him. [Dave had fallen in Vietnam in 1968, one of two such classmates.] Who did you go to the senior prom with? Some college guy?

 I also noticed that you have a photo on your profile page with roses (probably for Valentine’s Day) in your arms looking very nice. I suppose you have a special guy to help take care of you up there in New Hampshire. Now don’t take this the wrong way, I am not trying to “hit” on you but I could come up sometime while you are house-bound and we could talk about the old times. I hope you do not think I am too forward. Later Frank Jackman "