Tommy and the Big Cincuenta

Tom and George: Friends for fifty years

A little over two years ago, I was blown away when I received an email out of the blue from someone in my distant past. He had been anonymously reading my blog and he asked if I was "the george rede from decoto (union city) calif." If so, we had been good, if not best, friends in kindergarten/first grade.

Yes, I was that George Rede and the writer was Tommy Nunez, who was indeed my best friend in those long-ago days of black-and-white television, one-speed bicycles and baseball cards. We emailed back and forth, trading memories and establishing an online friendship. I wrote a blog post which remains one of my favorites: "Tommy? Is that you?

And today, our friendship came full circle. I flew down to San Jose for a weekend family reunion and drove over the mountains to Santa Cruz to meet him and wife Terri at one of their favorite spots for lunch. He met me in the doorway of Hula's, a casual restaurant with a tiki bar, Hawaiian art and a distinctly laidback surfer vibe. And, wouldn't you know it? He looked just like the Tommy Nunez I used to hang with until I was 7 or 8 years old -- except for the mustache and beard, of course.

Over the next 2 1/2 hours -- as Tom and his wife Terri sipped mai tais while I tossed back a couple of Oregon microbrews and we noshed on wings, pot stickers, calamari, chicken and beef skewers -- we chatted and laughed as comfortably as if we were still second-graders at Decoto Elementary School.

Hula's Bar and Grill, Santa Cruz

We covered a lot in 150 minutes: marriage, family, children, work, parents, siblings, in-laws, the economy, the Internet, Portland and Boulder Creek, the community where they live in the Santa Cruz Mountains. My family moved from Decoto/Union City, a blue-collar, heavily Latino town, after the fourth grade, when I was 10. I had the fuzzy impression that Tommy's family had moved away around the same time but he corrected me. His family also moved away after second grade, when we would have been 8 or 9.

We were both living in Fremont but in different parts of town, so we never again attended the same schools.

So, Terri interjected, that means you haven't seen in each other in, what, 50 years??

"Uh..." I stuttered. "I guess that's right. Fifty years!"

Last fall, I attended my 40th high school reunion and called it The Big Cuarenta. Realizing the Tom-George  friendship goes back half a century, it's only right to call it The Big Cincuenta. :)

Oh, how I wish Lori could have been with me. She would have loved Tom and Terri, with all of us growing up in the Bay Area. Lori in San Francisco and Terri in Hayward, the town immediately north of Union City. I told them both how completely relaxed I felt in their company and how it felt like Tom and I hadn't missed a beat. What a great feeling to know we have so much in common -- with three kids each, all of similar ages, including one married child and one gay or lesbian child in each of our families.

Here's hoping all four of us can get together, whether in Oregon or in California, to continue the conversation.