McDonogh buds vs. 'other buds'

When we graduated from high school, I think we thought that we'd never have friends as close as those that we made at McDonogh. When I graduated from Duke, I thought I'd never have friends as close as those in my fraternity, Beta Theta Pi. Grad school at Tulane was a great experience, but we were all preparing for our careers and didn't have the time for socialization that we did as undergrads or even high school.

My wife tells me that it's my fault that my daughter, Grace, considers everyone her friend. I tell her that Grace and I are fortunate. I truly enjoy my time with most of the people who I've associated with for any time period in my life. That includes everyone in our class.

There are some of you who I stumbled across in college; whether it was a visit you made to Duke or a visit I made to your college (I remember seeing Vic Svec and Ross McCausland at Western Maryland during my elongated Christmas break; Rob Lindsey at a W&L lacrosse game at NC State; Jeff Waters at a Maryland lacrosse game...). Some of you I ran into at either the Smoots' apartment or Maj's house during college breaks. I seem to recall seeing at least half of the guys at some point during the four summers that I spent working for Hugh Wilde's dad in Ocean City (Hugh, I could probably create a blog for that experience, but should heed my own advice about what to publish OR NOT on the internet: Fred Schulte worked at the Esso station on 52nd street back then). Since I returned to Baltimore in 1978, I've seen many of you at reunions (I've made all but the 5th), alumni events, parties, malls, Oriole games, Colts/Ravens games, McDonogh/Gilman football games, McDonogh/Gilman lacrosse games, etc. I'm a partner with Hugh Sisson in his Clipper City Brewing adventure (the fringe benefits are good, and there are some other McDonogh grads as partners, just not in our class). I'm also a partner in a real estate development with Chris Ross, McDonogh '69 and Duke '73. Currently, I am President of an online university, American Public University System (www.apus.edu), and my CFO is Harry Wilkins, McDonogh '74. We may be the first McDonogh alums to be CEO and CFO of the same company when it goes public (as we hope to do in the next year or so).

Regardless, I enjoy and appreciate our cameraderie now as much or more as I did back at McDonogh. We don't seem to have the time that we did back then and many of us have family and career obligations that take priority, but I find it worthwhile whenever I get a chance to socialize with anyone from McDonogh.