In Memory of

The Story of Undying Friendship

by Jim Henderson, Bob Jansen, Pat Kelly, Andy O’Shea

 

It is amazing that the friendships we cultivate in our youth require so little sustenance throughout our lives.  Brief encounters as we separately wind our way through life serve as periodic reminders of our earlier days together and the incredible strength of childhood friendships.  The roots of these friendships are deep and strong.  We may individually branch out in different directions as we grow older and further apart, but our sometimes planned, sometimes happenstance meetings in the decades since our youth pulse our memories back to the time when the roots of life-long friendship first took hold and began their incredible journey.

About 45 years ago five young boys started a collective friendship that survives to this day.  This friendship was forged in our schools, on baseball diamonds, football fields, and ice-skating rinks, during early morning paper routes and late night sleepovers, on birthdays, 4^th of July and New Year’s Eve celebrations, and at the rope swing over Rocky’s Dock along the Potomac River. We played hard and knew how to have fun.  We fought each other, as boys will do from time to time – but always reconciled.  We made crank phone calls, toilet papered dozens of girls houses, had our first beer together (behind Pat’s house) – yes, sometimes we were bad.  On the other hand, we made the honor roll, served in student government positions, were Scouts, were acolytes, and even attended cotillion together – most of the time we were decent human beings.  We did many of the things that you would expect of boys ages 8-15.

We called ourselves the Fearsome Five.  Tim, Pat, Jim, Andy, and Bob.

We liked to think that we lived our lives on the edge of a cliff – we were risk takers, dare devils, pushing the limits of what we could get away with.  One night, we collectively went over the edge and it was that one event that will forever bind us together, perhaps more than any other.

If we were ever to bestow honorary membership into the Fearsome Five it would be to George Candelori.  Back in the summer of 1972 we called him “Mr. Candelori.”  Andy and Jim were his paperboys.  Bob knew him as an 8^th grade math teacher at our middle school.  On that fateful Friday night, he was the target of five boys who were looking for some excitement, for something to break the monotony of a balmy summer evening.  We collectively determined that we would egg Mr. Candelori’s house.

Unbeknownst to them, Andy’s parents graciously supplied us with the eggs that were our ammunition. Mr. O’Shea would wonder why he didn’t have enough eggs for his usual “3 over easy” the next morning.  Off we went into the night with Bob leading the way.  Bob was the oldest of the five, our quarterback on the local football team.  His place at the point of our wedge felt right as we maneuvered our way through the yards towards Mr. Candelori’s house.  The adrenalin was flowing fast the closer we got to Mr. Candelori’s house.  This feeling was not foreign to us – we played ball together.  We were the core of the Waynewood Wolverines.  The looks on our faces were not unlike those that we wore when we huddled together on the football field – Bob, the cool and calm quarterback – did I mention he was the leader?  Pat and Tim, our fleet wide receiver corps.  Jim, a fast right tackle, able to run the counter-trey and open up holes for running backs.  And there was Andy, our undersized yet lumbering right guard.

We turned the corner of Waynewood Boulevard and Crossley Place and started to pick up speed as we approached Mr. Candelori’s house.  Tim and Jim moved to the front of the pack, Bob had dropped back.  Despite the fact that it was after 10:00 p.m. there were lights on in Mr. Candelori’s second floor living room.  Tim boldly dashed to the front of our team whooping and laughing as he let his eggs fly toward their intended target.  We unleashed our first salvo just as Andy said “wait” – at least most of us unloaded our hands.  Bob threw his eggs into the ground – he would later find and produce the egg remains as proof that his level of criminal mischief was a level below the rest of us.  The second salvo hit with the same resounding thud as the first.  As we turned and began our jog back to Andy’s several men emerged from Mr. Candelori’s house in full fury – he had been having a dinner party.  The chase was on.

We split up.  Bob and Andy and Tim headed east and turned north two streets from Mr. Candelori’s house.  Jim ran a parallel route one block over from Mr. Candelori’s house and soon outdistanced his pursuers.  Pat went southeast and headed home.  Andy, Bob and Tim had no such luck.  Halfway down the street they turned into a yard to try to shake the pursuers who were gaining on them.  Their route between the houses was blocked by a 7-foot fence – they were trapped!  Dogs were barking.  House lights clicked on as the men closed off our boys’ escape route.  Mr. Candelori tackled Bob and put him in a chokehold so tight that Bob had to later pick the old Italian’s arm hairs from between his teeth.  Then Mr. Candelori, in a virtually super human effort, grabbed Andy by the scruff of his neck as he attempted to scale the fence beside a rose bush.  Mr. Candelori ripped his flower-patterned shirt on the bush, making him all the more agitated.  Tim remained behind the protective cover of the rosebush, and the pursuers either did not see him or they didn’t want to try to reach through the thorns to pull a third attacker into the light.  Mr. Candelori turned Andy over to one of the dinner party guests and grabbed hold of Bob by his hair.  They began their shameful march back to the Candelori house.

Once at the house Bob and Andy were given no quarter.  They sat on the couch, Mr. Candelori and his friends hovering over them in menacing fashion.  In front of them was a coffee table with legal pad and two pens.  Mr. Candelori, foaming at the mouth and furious that his new shirt was ruined demanded “names, addresses, and phone numbers.”  Neither of our comrades would willingly give up their friends.  Mr. Candelori added, “I have called the police.”  In a flash Andy grabbed a pen and started writing.  Bob reluctantly joined him and also began to write.  The five of us were now exposed.  Mr. Candelori called our parents.  Disbelief that we could be involved in such a heinous act ran rampant through our families.

Our parents soon arrived at Mr. Candelori’s house.  It was a short trek for Bob’s parents for they lived just down the street.  Mr. Candelori was hot.  He railed on about jail time for all of us, restitution for the damage to his house and his shirt, and parental liability.  Our parents, three of whom were military officers, were non-plussed at these threats.  Andy’s mom flicked her cigarette ashes on Mr. Candelori’s carpet.  Cooler heads prevailed.

In the mean time, Pat’s parents had been located at a party at their community pool.  They went home, found Pat “asleep” in bed, and he and his father drove to Mr. Candelori’s house to join the rest of the parents and culprits.  Jim was at Andy’s house awaiting the safe arrival of our team.  After some time Jim left and headed back down the street and for some reason was drawn back to Candelori’s house.  From a safe vantage point in the shadow of the house across the street Jim could see our parents and his friends in Mr. Candelori’s house.  Having no possible way to explain his role in this away, Jim walked toward the house where he was greeted by one of Mr. Candelori’s dinner guests and then escorted into the front door.  As Jim entered the door and walked up the short flight of stairs Mr. Candelori exclaimed, “my paperboy!”  There would be no Christmas tip that year.  Tim soon joined us.  As usual, he displayed his ever-present impish grin for, unlike the rest of the Five, he had the presence to see the humor in the situation.

Negotiations continued between Mr. Candelori and our parents.  We would buy Mr. Candelori a new shirt.  We would wash his house, which we did several times over the next couple of days.  We would paint Mr. Candelori’s house if the eggs discolored the paint.  We would be grounded.

The police arrived and delivered a stern lecture to us all.  They soon left after seeing that Mr. Candelori had calmed down and that good and decent parents were on the scene.  Bob continued to profess his innocence as he restated over and over that “they could beat the %#$& out of me, but I didn’t throw an egg.”   He still held the proof of this in his hands.  The rest of us could not say the same and we soon commenced to washing the house.  We would be back there the next day, and a few more times.  We were back on the street about a week later.

This event served to define our friendship for the rest of our lives.  It was emblematic of how we dealt with adversity – no finger pointing in this quintet!  We stuck together and became a stronger crew, so much so that when we celebrated each others’ next birthdays (as we always did) the four would present the celebrant with a metal identification bracelet embossed with his initials on the front and his nickname on the back, and the number “5.” We were the Fearsome Five… and the bling advertised our mutual bond to one another – a bond that survived the inevitable separate paths we each took into adulthood.

Epilogue.

Andy and Mr. Candelori became fast friends during the ensuing school year as Mr. Candelori was his assigned math teacher.  Jim had to collect monthly newspaper delivery fees from Mr. Candelori only one more year.  Tim and Pat and Bob had very little interaction with Mr. Candelori after the incident.  Despite our transgression that night and having the right to hold a grudge for a long time, Mr. Candelori would occasionally run into our parents and always seemed interested in what we were doing in high school and then college.  Mr. Candelori was a little amazed at how well we turned out.  He should not have been as we came from good stock; we had parents that held us accountable for our actions, who set limits on us, and who were always interested in our friends and the kind of people they were.

We five branched out during high school.  Pat’s family moved to New York after his freshman year at Bishop Ireton High School.  Andy also attended Bishop Ireton where he excelled as an undersized nose guard on the football team.  Bob was a year older than us so he entered high school and graduated a year earlier than the rest of us.  Jim played sports.  Tim started really honing his magic craft, and every now and then would amaze Jim and Bob as we passed one another in the hallways at school.  We were all honor students.  We all went to college.  Tim established himself as a leading master of both magic and mentalism.  Bob became a professionally licensed engineer and company president.  Andy and Pat are both successful lawyers.  Jim served as a career Army officer.

Occasionally we had the opportunity to gather together, and each time we did it was as if nothing had changed for our early lives together in elementary school, middle school, playing little league sports, celebrating birthdays, and just hanging out during the summers of our childhood.  This time together made us fast friends for life for despite the passage of time the events that marked our friendship as the Fearsome Five are etched in our memories forever.

 

Epilogue – Part II, 2013

The physical loss of Tim to our team of Five awakened a desire in the remaining four – Bob, Jim, Pat and Andy – to reconnect and reenergize our long-standing friendship.  We pledged that we would, as much as possible, reassemble the team from time to time so we could reminisce about less complicated times in our lives – times when we were, unbeknownst to us, forging life-long bonds to one another.  Each of the past three years we have met to enjoy one another’s company, quaff a few beers, and submit a toast to our dear departed friend, Tim.  While four of us are physically present at these reunions, there are five of us in spirit, for we know that Tim sits among us with a smile on his face, filling in moments of silence like only he could do with wit, charm, and laughter.  We are grateful for one another’s friendship and that Tim, in his own way, has made it stronger than ever.