Youthful friendship and long-ago days in Arts I at UBC

In 1967, I was part of the flagship class of Arts I, an inter- disciplinary program for first-year students. Among its merits was the fact that we were a small group in our own building, and thus, got to know one another very well.

In Arts I, my new friend Pat got into the theme group Love and Death, for which I envied her. I had to settle for Utopia and something else that I've no memory of now.

I first met Pat in Arts I. We discovered that we were in the same residence, Totem Park, though we lived in different buildings. After finding one another, we went everywhere together. One fine fall day, we rolled in the freshly cut grass in Marine Drive Foreshore Park, then ran giggling up to our respective rooms, dripping clippings in the stairwells.

In the spring we were more sedate. On sunny days, we spread ourselves on the lawn in the Rose Garden by the Faculty Club and read TS Eliot together. We were both crazy about his poetry, especially "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."

"Do I dare to eat a peach?" we used to say to one another meaningly, and sometimes say even now. And laugh as we remember finishing one another's sentences during our many long conversations.

Somehow we mixed up our Eliot books (Faber & Faber edition, London). On my shelf still, never far from where I can easily pull it down, is the book I ended up with. At least half the annotations are in Pat's handwriting.

What a gift it is to develop a profound friendship in youth, when one has time and energy, and then keep that friendship for a lifetime.