Yesterday, my old friend Mike Cobbold came down from Sacramento for a two day visit. As I have mentioned previously, I knew Mike during the last few years of high school when our respective families were stationed in Rome and we both went to Notre Dame International Prep School on the Via Aurelia. Mike lived with his parents and brother, Robert, near the school on the Via Aurelia. I was living with my mother and sister (my older sister had already gone off to college in the U.S.) down south in the new area of Rome called EUR. Mike and I got friendly in those days particularly because we both rode motorcycles and hung around with two other classmates, Bob Asselbergs and Tom Wohlmut. Tom lived near me with his parents and older brother and Bob lived even further south near the shore in Ostia in an area called Casal Palocco with his much larger family. The four of us got to know one another aboard Gilera 125cc motorcycles which we rode all over Italy and other countries in Europe in the summer. One trip in particular Mike and I took (along with his brother) to Austria was particularly memorable. There was an overnight in a Gasthof in the Brenner Pass in eiderdown beds and fresh-from-the-cow milk (unpasteurized) for breakfast. There was another overnight in a field by the side of the road that involved a midnight visit from a friendly hedgehog into our tent. And there were an array of linguistic challenges since none of us spoke German and had to find our way through everything from menus to road signs with minimal language skills.
Shortly after that trip, we all went into our senior year of high school with ambitions for the acquisition of larger bikes. I don’t remember all of the order of who got the big bike first, but I suspect it was Bob who led the way with his BSA 500 single-cylinder Royal Star “Thumper”. Then it was Mike with his BSA 650 Lightning, me with my Triumph 650 Tiger TR6R, and Tom with his Triumph Trident 750. We were like all high school pals, whose motorcycle lives were intertwined with one another. I had bought both a Lambretta 50 scooter and a Ducati 50 racer from Bob. We all bought Gileras after Bob bought his. Then we all bought British bikes, two twins and one triple after Bob led the way again with his Thumper. Then, after a senior year with lots of tall motorcycle tales from the Roman roads and one inspirational viewing of Easy Rider at the American movie theater in Parioli in the north of Rome, we all headed back to North America after graduation. Bob went off the Carlton University in Ottawa, Canada. Tom went to Pepperdine in Malibu. Mike went to San Francisco State College, and I went off to Cornell in Upstate New York. Bob and I shipped our bikes over to New York via the Italian Line with his parents. Mike sold his BSA in Rome before leaving. And Tom shipped his Trident to Los Angeles, where he sold it to Mike, who was all too happy to reclaim a British ride that had put in its time on the Roman roads.
I reconnected with Bob around 1985, with Tom about 2005 and with Mike just seven or eight years ago. I was roughly aware of what Mike had done with his life through Tom, but until our class 50th reunion, done by Zoom during COVID in 2021, we weren’t in direct contact. In the last two years we have gone back and forth with letters, old Polaroids, emails and texts. Then Mike was planning a trip to a conference here in San Diego and we agreed that it would be a perfect opportunity to come for a few day visit so we could reconnect properly. I don’t get up to Sacramento much if ever, so I invited him and his wife Annette to stay with us on their way to their conference. Mike & Annette arrived yesterday afternoon and we had about five hours yesterday and another nine hours today and I think its fair to say that we have each been able to get a grip on each other’s life story since high school. We had absolutely no agenda other than to talk, and that’s what we did. We talked in the living room yesterday and then over a long leisurely dinner. Then, today, we talked for a few hours on the deck, went to the beach for lunch and a walk, where we talked some more, spent some time in my office….talking some more, and finally went to dinner to talk even more. I’m sure we missed many parts of our respective lives, but we were able to share many stories and many good memories. I can’t remember the last time I had such an intensive walk down memory lane. It’s amazing that two people could spend a few years as good friends and then spend most of a lifetime following very different paths and living very full lives each growing their own families and then suddenly reconnect and try and learn as much as possible about one another in just two days. That may not be a process that everyone can see value in, but I can say that I found it both interesting and very pleasant. As different as our lives have been, I think it’s fair to say that we are both very happy with where we have ended up. Mike led a full, natural and physical life. I led a full, commercial and more cerebral life. And even though Mike stopped riding motorcycles many years ago, and I continued riding motorcycles all these years, there remains a common bond through motorcycles. It just doesn’t seem to go away.
We are both moving a bit slower these days. I still drag around a lot more bulk than I should, but I am otherwise generally very healthy. Mike has had a bit more trouble with his health between some back surgeries some arthritis and what is now a 35 year struggle with type one diabetes. I find myself thinking that despite his physical limitations, Mike is still in there and I still recognize him as the very cool and very clear man that he was 55 years ago. It makes me wonder whether or not people see through my changes over the years and think I am more or less the same man that I was way back when. We all grow over time, but I somehow think that fundamentally we’re more the same than not. And on the most important things, things that are truly defining our existence as Americans and human beings these days, Mike and I seem to be almost perfectly on the same page. In this day and age, I can think a few things that are more meaningful in appreciating the appropriateness of a long-term relationship and friendship than that. These two days have given me some very fond Roman memories and renewed faith in mankind all because of the long ago friendship that Mike and I have rekindled.