November 11th at 11:11am with eleven seconds
I have always enjoyed numbers and patterns. November 11th has held significant meaning in my life since my childhood days. The date has an interesting number pattern 11/11 and at the time 11:11am a digital watch will show all ones. The Chinese celebrate this as a national holiday as a shopping day or single’s day. I first recognized this pattern while in high school, but to fully understand it’s significance to me we have to rewind back to first grade.
I grew up in New York City where I attended the prestigious Collegiate school for boys. My first grade class was made up of two sections each with 25 students. Those that stayed at Collegiate for all twelve years were labelled survivors. I was not a survivor. One of my first grade classmates was a boy named Jon Schneidman. We became friends, but not really close friends. We would hangout playing with blocks and we were part of the same afterschool sports program. In second grade we realized that both of our grandparents lived in Sarasota, FL and we would be there at the same time for spring break. Jon and his granddad along with me and my Grandpa met up to go to the Chicago White Sox versus New York Yankees spring training game. That afternoon together with our grandpas cemented our relationship. We became closer after that and for the next few years each spring break we would go to a Whites Sox spring training game with our grandpas. Jon’s mom died a few years later of cancer. It was tragic for Jon, his brother, his dad and his mom’s parents which were the grandparents I had gotten to know. Jon became quite rebellious as a result of coping with the loss. He was one of the bigger kids in our class and I was the smallest. Jon became the class bully and we were often pitted against each other in fights. That often ended with us at the principles office. Not a good showing for either of us. While in middle school Jon’s dad decided to move his family to Boston. I was actually relieved to see Jon go as our friendship had faded and I had come to fear him instead. This was a tough move for Jon. He attended a local public school and struggled to make new friends in a new city with a new stepmom as well.
During my eighth grade year at Collegiate, I decided I had had enough of the all boys school, enough of New York City and I wanted to get away. I convinced my parents that I should go away to boarding school. Reluctantly they agreed. We toured several schools throughout New England. While visiting the Berkshire School in Sheffield, Massachusetts a very coincidental thing happened. We were waiting in the admissions office for our tour when the door opened to the outside and in walked Jon Schneidman and his dad Lenny. Wow that was a surprise. We went on the tour together and both fell in love with the school. Maybe subversively we took comfort in the idea that we would each know someone there if we chose to attend.
That next fall, Jon and I kicked off our freshman year at Berkshire. We were in the same dorm and in the same friend set. We spent time together and things were more like they had been in early grade school. After freshman year, we were given the opportunity to choose our roommates for sophomore year. Jon and I chose to be roommates. We really enjoyed each other’s company and the fact that we had history with each other made it like living with a sibling. So it was the fall of 1986 and we were lying in our bunk beds in our door room after lights out one evening when I looked at my Casio watch and saw that it was November 11th. Jon looked at the clock in our room and saw it was coming up on 11:11pm. We stared at the clock and our watches and waited for all the ones to align. It was 11:11 on 11/11. So cool. While technically we did this in the evening, we knew it was something cool. We thought about the fact that in 2011 the calendar would be even cooler as it would be 11:11 on 11/11/11. That would be 25 years from the time we noticed this. We made a pact that we would stay in touch with each other throughout our lives by connected each year on 11/11.
Jon and I roomed together for the remainder of high school. He spent the summer before college living with me at our summer home in the Hamptons. We joked that we worked destruction that summer as we worked for a construction company but the only work they trusted us to perform was demo work. We attended different colleges, but stayed in close contact. After college Jon moved to DC and I moved back to New York City. A few years later I moved to DC to attend American University for my masters degree. I moved there right as Jon was wrapping up his law degree also from American University. Our paths kept crossing. Even as distance and time separated us, we made good on our promise. Each year on 11/11 one of us calls the other. We have missed the AM opportunity, but not a year has passed since high school that we have not connected on 11/11.
I tell this story as a reminded that friendship is important. We all need things to anchor ourselves to in our lives. Jon was the best man in my wedding, we see each other maybe once every five years or so now, but I can count on the fact that we will talk today at 11:11 on 11/11 and it will be great to hear his voice.