Being trans­ferred to Bayview Glen in grade five was my first pri­vate school expe­ri­ence. The change from Catholic school was sub­tle; aside from the bet­ter funded facil­i­ties and pas­sion­ate teach­ers, the only dis­cern­able dif­fer­ence was the man­di­tory uni­form. It was there that I met John in my classes, but back then he was the bully who threw me against a wall at first recess. My par­ents inter­vened in the form of an angry phonecall to the teacher, and I learned never to tell them about my prob­lems at school again, out of fear that I would be emas­cu­late me.

John main­tained a rep­u­ta­tion as one of the kings of the play­ground. At that age, he was a pre­co­cious pre-teen, match­ing machismo with Daniel Cappon for the atten­tion of Pamela Arstikitis, the acer­bic, metal-mouthed, blonde beauty. I remained bliss­fully young and igno­rant, and we never really got along.

In grade seven, he changed schools to Upper Canada College, as his grand­fa­ther had done over fifty years ago, while I went through both the test and inter­view, and didn’t make the cut. Our par­ents knew of the school’s pres­ti­gious rep­u­ta­tion and yearned des­per­ately for their respec­tive sons to be alum­nus. Two years later I made a suc­cess­ful sec­ond attempt, and moved there too.

I was by myself, in a school full of jocks, aca­d­e­mics, and artis­tic eso­ter­ics. John’s rep­u­ta­tion didn’t fol­low him to this insti­tu­tion, where he was the odd, alien­ated, aloof, young man, while I remained the small, dys­func­tional boy who never fit in any­where. We were seper­ate lon­ers, and our indi­vid­u­al­ity is what brought us together. We never had any classes together, so lunches were spent phi­los­o­phiz­ing on the bleach­ers when the weather per­mit­ted, or mis­be­hav­ing in Mr. Lorne’s class­room, throw­ing text­books at each other in the win­ter. Eventually we went our seper­ate ways in uni­ver­sity, and John was the only per­son I kept in touch with.

In the sum­mer between grade seven and eight, as part of the children’s choir of Bayview Glen, we audi­tioned for a part in the Canadian pre­mier of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. This con­sisted of a demo tape, a semi-final com­pe­ti­tion between 25 schools, and finals of 10, with only four school choirs being selected. The judges told us to hold our cel­e­bra­tion until all the final­ists were announced, but by the time we were called, we couldn’t hold it in, and let out with a thun­der­ous roar. It was the only time in my life that I was so happy I cried.

The pic­ture of our choir, roughly 25 stu­dents between the ages of 10 and 14, ended up in the per­for­mance book­lets that were handed out to the audi­ence as they walked from the lobby to their seats in the Elgin Theatre. We were far from friends back then, but we stood next to each other. I still don’t under­stand why.

John’s hair­cut hasn’t devi­ated from a hastily brushed mop. Mine, on the other hand, has gone through var­i­ous stages of shagg­y­ness, poofi­ness, and occa­sional what-was-I-thinking. It’s just like the two of us. John did all his grow­ing up before he was 12, and at his core he’s essen­tially the same per­son now as he was back then, while I con­tinue the never-ending cycle of learn­ing and growing.

And this will prob­a­bly be true in another 15 years.