As I Was Saying...

Sam and I visited his old High School a few weeks back. I think it was at Sam’s High School graduation when he asked me if we could go back and visit. I promised him that he could, and I figured at the time, I could take him sometime the following January. January made sense because I figured he would be on a college schedule and have most of January off, while his High School would be back in session. This also was a little bit of a carrot on a stick - something to shoot for, depending on how the coming school year went.

Well, as it turned out, Sam’s January schedule is a little more like the High School schedule.

While the college is closed, Sam still has his program. Even though the program is housed in the college, it’s run by an independent organization. With the college closed for most of January, Sam instead goes to the program’s main office for three days a week. For one of these days, Sam stays at the main office and works on job skills - things like resume writing, practicing interviewing - things like that. For the other two days, Sam and another young man go with the instructor to help out at a homeless shelter,where they do things like help prepare meals and help with the dishes.So, January was a little more full than I expected, but with the shortened weekly schedule, it still left Mondays and Fridays free.

So, January came, and we had to figure out what would work. It was a good thing that we started early because it took pretty much the entire month to arrange the visit. I won’t bore you with all of the details, but we finally were able to visit on Sam’s last free Friday before resuming his full schedule.

Sam was not going to be able to spend the entire day, as I think he had hoped. It was supposedly some kind of policy (one of those details that I won’t get into). So, I figured we would add some other things to do, to help assuage any potential disappointment and maybe for at least one of us to feel a little special.

We started the day by leaving a little bit early for the High School (surprise!). But along the way, we stopped at the used clothing store. Neither of us had been there in quite a while so it seemed like a good time to visit. Most people go for the used clothing or the used books or the old VHS tapes (i guess), but not us. While I’ll look at the clothing (you can never have too many old sweaters and bathrobes), Sam hunts for stray threads for his thread collection. This, I think, is one of Sam’s favorite things to do. It’s not that he tells me that it is, he’s too self conscious about it for that (so I don’t point it out.) It's that whenever we go to any store that has any amount of clothing, this is what he likes to do.

To the outside observer, Sam appears to be meticulously examining the quality and style of the clothing. To me, he’s meticulously stuffing his pockets with threads- one thread at a time.

We spent about twenty minutes at the store - Sam procuring the threads, while I killed time looking for almost anything of interest. Finally, enough time had been killed and it was time for us to get going. I left the store without any bathrobe or sweater, but I did buy a small blanket for Sam. Sam left with several little balled-up clumps of threads.

We got to the High School and signed in at the front desk. The ladies at the front counter were thrilled to see Sam and they really laid it on - which I think it their style, thank goodness. Sam glowed and chatted for a bit and then we made our way down through the winding halls, to his old classroom.

When we got there,I figured I would kill more time out in the hall. I didn’t want to follow him into the classroom and have him to feel like I was hovering. So I found a chair and sat down as he went in. As the door closed behind him, I could hear several people, his old teacher included, shout out his name and I could imagine how much this meant to Sam. And so, I waited.

Sam visited for awhile, and then the students had to go to lunch. Sam said his goodbyes and we went down the hall, to the student run restaurant where we dined on a hamburger (me) and fried scrod (Sam). From there, we went over to the cafeteria so Sam could say ”Hi” to his old friends, The Lunch Ladies.

For the last few years of high school, Sam worked with these ladies, cleaning tables and putting away dishes and such. And when he was done, they would all eat lunch together. We will occasionally bump into one of these women when we’re on our Saturday errands, but it’s infrequent, and anyway, there’s something much nicer about seeing them in their natural habitat. Sam visited while I once again stayed in the background.

Before leaving, Sam said “Goodbye” one more time to his old teacher and his old classroom, and then we stopped by the Guidance Office before checking out at the front desk, where the women behind the counter, once again showered Sam with warmth and praise.

As we drove away, it was clear that Sam was filled with both happiness and nostalgia. And we talked about the visit and we talked about the memories - and we talked about how lucky it is that he has known such wonderful people, and that he has such wonderful memories - all of which he will carry with him, for the rest of his life.