(John sent us this memento on 21 Nov 2009)
I have the honor and privilege to claim Jay and I were first and best friends growing up. You only have one “first” friend. We knew each other since we were 2 1/2. We knew each other so long we memorized each others phone #’s. The only problem was we had to wait four or five years until we could reach the telephones to dial the #! Funny both homes still have the same #’s. I lived in the first house at the bottom of the hill on “little Belmont” and Jay lived two doors up. Who needed the phone. Our Mom’s would just walk out the door and scream our names. My Mom would look up the street, Jay’s Mom would look down. Only now I will admit we would wait in silence just to hear our Mom’s scream at the top of their lungs just one more time and laugh hysterically before screaming back…I’M COMING!!! and then laugh some more. We sure laughed a lot about everything. In many respects we were total opposites. Jay was a mechanic by age 5 and I was into my sports yet there was never a day when we didn’t hang out. School was a blast. The one thing we had in common was hating school work. We just had so much fun goofing around all the time. We walked to and from school everyday for 8 years. We came home for lunch everyday and would run up to the Amackassin Club for a quick game of pool before returning to school. Then we would come home and play all evening until our Mom’s screamed our names again. Yes, we waited for the second and third scream then too. :o) Life was always a barrel of laughs with Jay, always interesting too. Never a dull moment. Sacred Heart had two classes in each grade. Somehow we ended up in the same class all 8 years. Not once did we ever have an argument. That was Jay. Although we took very different paths growing up we always saw eye to eye. Amazing.
John Conroy