At 3:00 am this morning as I momentarily escaped from my lair to void my bladder, I saw on my iPhone an email from a former prep school colleague.  Even though it has been decades – perhaps as many as four or five – since we had last communicated with one another, I have never forgotten him. His name is Bobby and he stands out as one of the characters of my upbringing at school.

He had for example the unqualified distinction of having been known as “The Mad Bomber” – the description of the fellow behind the midnight water bombings in Upper Sixth at the end of term.  The only reason I escaped the peril of the overnight casualty was because I feigned some lock or other eliminating device on my bedroom door in Fourth House. Perhaps the Pink Panther theme had already run its course before his identity became common knowledge.

Bobby is one of those unusual chaps who straddles the line between jock and nerd. I suspect it is a feature arising from his good humour and kind heart. Young boys are seldom recalled for such qualities as magnanimity or unrivalled fraternity but Bobby was known and respected for both. The description of the Toronto Old Boys with whom he recently congregated over lunch is testimony to his largesse as the identities span the horizon of Holden Caufield’s acquaintances.

Forgive me for repeating the obvious but I cannot ignore the fortune of hearing the names of so many now ancient colleagues who are still whinnying among us.  By contrast every day I find I am reading or hearing about someone I once knew who has – as my late father was wont to say – “gone into space”. Being removed from the immediate Toronto area I haven’t – as Bobby reportedly does – the occasion for annual get togethers.  Instead my allowance of erstwhile friends has been by coincidence in Florida or through friends travelling abroad – in other words, casually and coincidentally .