We are driving from Moscow to Seattle, two almost-forgotten friends sharing music and memories. We’re on the return leg of a journey back in time to our alma mater, the University of Idaho, and the 30th reunion of our fraternity pledge class.
As Andy starts to speak, I turn down the music.
“Tell me about Saturday night,” Andy says, a hint of worry and his native Danish in his voice.
“I’m having trouble remembering.”
For Andy, fragments of the weekend already are disappearing Sunday as we drive. He has Alzheimer’s, and the disease already is robbing him of his short-term memory.
Andy had called me a few months before from his home in Wichita, Kan. Would I reunite in April
with other Phi Gamma Delta brothers—Fijis, we call ourselves—who had pledged in the fall of 1972? Eighteen of 27 answered his call. We came from every corner of the country, because Brother Andy needed us.
We found out we needed him just as much.
One weekend brought an almost spiritual sharing of feelings between middle-age men who thought they had lost each other. One weekend awakened pleasant memories for me, along with a few painful ones. One weekend made me question what I had done with three decades.
As I drive, I start to tell Andy what happened the night before in the Gold Room.
Andy stood up and slowly made his way with the help of a cane to the front of a hotel banquet room of Fijis in their early 50s. He had been rehearsing this moment for weeks so he wouldn’t forget what he wanted to say.
The 54-year-old man who stood before us wore thick glasses, and his blond hair and beard were turning silver. Yet his eyes and voice were just as I remembered.
Andy told us the reunion was the therapy he needed to hold back his Alzheimer’s for a little while. He told us what a success we all had been and how proud he was of us. But most of all he spoke of the bonds of friendship and fraternity.
“It’s something you carry with you for the rest of your life,” Andy said, his voice strong as he leaned on his cane carved from Texas mesquite. “Every one of us cares about each other. That’s something that doesn’t happen in the rest of the world on a regular basis.”
Someone leaned forward at a nearby table and whispered what most of us were thinking: “Andy’s telling us goodbye.
” Jerry “Wildcat” Myers ’86 stood up and joined Andy. A manager of a wilderness ranch in Idaho, he pulled out eagle feathers he’d found along the Middle Fork of the Salmon River and stuck one in the band of the cowboy hat that Andy had kept since college.
“This is strong medicine,” Wildcat said. “May this give you strength. We know you’re going to need it.” Tears rolled down Andy’s cheeks, and the two men embraced. The rest of us encircled them and joined in the hug.
