Your five best friends at school -- how did they turn out? (member, divorced)

[KaraG]

I'm still close with my gang of 14 girl friends at 61. They're all fine.

Most were teachers or admins at our old high school, almost all have retired.

One went into behind the scenes TV work, one has a retail store, one does sales, one hospital admin, one works in a doctor's office. The most intelligent one ended up having 2 disabled children and a husband with recurring cancers so she has spent most of her adult life caretaking.

Marriage wise, all married, 2 were married 3 times, 1 was married twice. Thanking God that none of us are widowed yet.

Now most of us are grandmas.

[twinkletwinkle22]

My smartest friend from HS died in a helicopter crash with his wife and infant son touring Iguazu Falls. He graduated Yale, worked at UN then intergovernmental company, his wife was the daughter of important South Americans. He was a kind and brilliant person. I had lost touch with him and was shocked to learn about his untimely death while reading the NY Times.

A college roommate won a national award for her musical last year but AFAIK she did not get famous or much money from it. She is retired and lives quietly.

Other friends: 2 became nurses but only one stayed employed, the other chose to be a mom and support to her semi-famous husband. The nurse friend and I speak often and agree about politics more than anyone else except my husband.

One grade school friend retired from a grade-school teaching career. We don't agree about politics at all.

Interesting fact: every single one of the black kids I knew in grade school (1960's) became doctors. I don't know any white kids from my grade school that became doctors. So I'd say they were the highest achievers from my class. One of them sat in front of me for one year and her clothes and hair were always perfect, unlike mine.

I achieved a lot and am very successful too, not a doctor lol.

[simbared]

Originally Posted by Matt Marcinkiewicz

I found this number hard to believe. Google sez:

'The annual median pay for an entry-level radiologist was $206,920, or $99.48 per hour, as reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in May 2016. Experienced radiologists may make as much as $470,000. Developing strong relationships with physicians can lead to an increase in patients referred for care'

So I still find it likely to be a bit inflated.

Actually not inflated. Depending on location, busy hospital-based radiologists can make well over $500K.

[foxyknoxy]

1. Lazy living in a shelter with a kid
2. Converted to Islam. Doesn’t work. Has a litter of kids.
3. Works minimum wage and lives with relatives
4. Lazy lives with parents with a kid
5. Died from cancer shortly after high school

[PesachSeder]

I had 4 or 5 folks I hung out with in HS who i thought were friends. As far as I know they all turned out fine, married had kids, nice normal jobs teaching or working retail, I heard 1 became an accountant. Decent lives but no Noble prize winners.
I don't know exactly how their lives went since I started coming out as gay the first couple of years after high school and one by one they cut off communication with me. Like I said, I thought they were friends. Apparently I was wrong.

[nalabama]

There’s four, maybe five of us. Government bureaucrats, teacher, engineer, builder. We all had pretty run of the mill careers, nothing great, nothing too bad. Some were away for years, but all of us have been back here for a while now. We still get together for meals, marriages, funerals, some birthdays, little projects. Mini feuds, spats, etc. over the years, but still come together when we need to. At our age, we have some serious health issues facing us, but we try to help each other through the crises. I fully expect to be the last one standing and am already beginning to think about how our lives are going to change. It won’t be for the better. My friends have been very important to me.

[SmartMoney]

Originally Posted by germaine2626

I had several very close, out of town friends in high school (college & beyond) through a political organization.

My very best friend became my husband. He was a trial attorney with several advanced degrees, and probably the smartest person that I have ever met. Sadly, he developed a type of early onset dementia in his late 40s and passed away at age 65.

My best female friend received her doctorate, published numerous books and was a tenured professor at a prestigious University. She developed early onset Alzheimer's and passed away at age 52.

My second best female friend also received her doctorate, was a pioneer in her specialized area and was a tenured professor at one of the best Universities in her field. Sadly, she died from cancer when she was about 40.

My two close friends at my high school both had average jobs (one a nurse the other worked in an office), average lives, and (I believe) average marriages but they are both still alive at age 67.

I had an average career (as a special education teacher) and an average life and I am still alive at age 67.

I wonder if there is a message in what happened to all of us?

You think? How sad, though. Sorry for your losses.

[otowi]

Hmm, not sure if I know.
Julia got a masters in math, married a military officer, had two kids late.
No idea what Becky does but her kids are swim stars and she has been fighting brain cancer.
Michele got a degree in Biochemistry, became a nurse and married around age 40 and is doing some other medical career thing now, I think.
Angie married young and is raising 6 kids but I think they're not all hers - maybe a blended family?
Rachel joined the navy, married her recruiter, not sure after that.

[Rippla]

I stopped talking to them the day we graduated and left the country a month later and still to return.

So who knows

[MinivanDriver]

Originally Posted by cebuan

How successful in life were your 5 best school friends?

Morris became a fairly successful artist, but mostly lived with his mom down south. He's the only classmate I kept in touch with..

Harry became a psychologist, went to Hollywood, and had a few minor stars as clients.

David was in charge of the jail as a deputy sheriff out west

Both Bobs became grunt workers in the home town.

One was the son of my parents' best friends. We parted ways after graduation. He went to college, dropped out after a semester and screwed around until he was forced to come home and live with his parents. He's still there at age 57, without a job or anything. He joined FB, friended me, and immediately started making snarky comments, including photos of my wife and kids. I immediately dropped him with a rather savage commentary that he pretty much is where he deserves to be in life. I can take jibes. But no one talks about my family. Looking back, it's hard to believe that I was friends with him, chiefly because he loved to say mean crap about people.

One is a junior college English professor, but I haven't seen her since her wedding. It was a brief, disastrous marriage.

One's a dentist in a city about 200 miles away. We have friendly conversations on FB.

One I remain friends with to this day. We aren't as tight as we once were, chiefly because he made some terrible decisions in his twenties, and relied on me to constantly prop him up. He drank too much, fell in with some really gross friends, got engaged to a woman who stole him blind, and had so many wrecks that he needed high-risk insurance. After I had to drive 300 miles round trip in the middle of the night on a Sunday to bail him out because his ride got nailed with a DUI, I had to cool it with him for a while. I'd find him jobs and he'd get fired in a couple of months. He finally got his act together, met a great woman, and I was his best man. But our friendship was on shaky ground for a while, chiefly because of the one-way nature of it.

The fifth is married and lives 500 miles away. She had some problems in college, came home, got her act together, met a great guy, and they have a pretty great life.

But truthfully, high school is pretty much a way station for most people. Unless you never leave your neighborhood, you make your friends in college and as a young adult.