I meet up with mates from my late teens/early 70's most Saturday afternoons for a pint in Southend, about 20 miles from where I live. Theres about 6 regulars and a dozen or so who call in every few weeks. A lot of them had bikes back in the day but I'm the last to still ride regularly. Gets me on the bike at least once a week and good to keep up with all the gossip.
The Internet makes everyone too close. Sena need a kicking as now I don't even get any peace with my helmet on.
I’ve been putting off replying to this thread, simply because being 50 earlier this year also made me think a bit, and not all of what I’ve done in life makes me feel particularly proud of myself. However, I can compare my experience of keeping in touch with school friends with that of my eldest son who’s just off to start his third year at Uni. I moved away from home in Buckinghamshire to go to Portsmouth Polytechnic, all of my crowd at school did the same thing, Uni or Poly, so we spread ourselves up and down the country. My son and his group of friends have done the same thing. In the beginning I trooped back to my parents every holiday, got a temporary job and met up with old school friends. This soon tailed off, whereas my son and his friends are still meeting up when ‘at home’ and even travel to see each other around the country during term time. I ended up settling in and around Portsmouth, as I'd made new friends who also stayed, it was cheaper to live, and I could get a mortgage on a 3 bed semi when I started work, where all I could afford near my parents was a 1 bed flat in a dodgy part of High Wycombe. I’m not sure where my lad will end up, he’s considering 3 different countries at the moment to continue his studies. The difference is the ease of communication and travel now compared to then. If I wanted to keep in touch with old school friends I had to call them on a land line, if their student accommodation had one, most didn’t, and there was always a queue at the phone box. During Xmas, Easter and the Summer you could call their parents house and arrange to meet up to see what they had done all term. I suppose letters could be written, but that meant knowing their address or sending it to their parents house to be forwarded, but lets face it, who sent letters. My son and his friends are obviously always in touch via social media, text etc, and that continuous contact does not seem to let the friendships to fade away. Getting married, fixing up houses, and life in general then got in the way for me, and before I knew it I didn't know how to contact a lot of people. Now I don't know if it's a good or bad thing to keep in touch with so many people, I'll ask my Son in a couple of years time. Personally, I'm a miserable git and like my own company. Nasher.
