I was the editor of my high school newspaper in Denver, Colorado — the East High Spotlight. As a graduation gift, my parents joined forces with the staff and my journalism teacher to create a bound archive, all 14 issues from the end of my junior year to the finish line. I still have it.

It’s basically a condensed biography of adolescence in the Fifties, at least for those coming of age in the foothills of the Rockies, when there were more bowlers than soccer players, more pep rallies than pot parties, when summer jobs were lawn mowing and newspaper delivery, not assisting at a domestic abuse clinic or interning on Wall Street.

Back in 2010 when my wife and I were packing up our mainland house, preparing for the full-time move to the Vineyard, I stumbled across this archive, tucked in the back of a bookcase. I riffled through the pages and transported myself into nostalgia.

The phone rang. An old pal from East High, someone whose friendship I’ve kept over the years, informed me that I had a job in anticipation of our 50th reunion. We decided we’d gather about a dozen of us with spouses and take over a B&B in the high school neighborhood. My job was to find Bill Schmidt, who may be somewhere in New England. He had been the yearbook editor when I was running the paper. We hadn’t seen each other since we were 18.

All I had to go on was the image in my first bound Spotlight — a tall peach tree of a boy sitting cross-legged for a yearbook staff photo. On the top of facing pages are two stories from the end of our junior year, each focusing on the rise to our respective editorships, each pictured. So I started Googling and found an attorney William Schmidt in downtown Boston, 20 miles from my house. I called. This was essentially the conversation.

“Is this the Bill Schmidt who grew up in Denver?”

“Who is this?”

“Arnie Reisman.”

“You know I’ve been meaning to call you.”

“How long have you been in the Boston area, Bill?”

“Thirty-five years.”

Life had gotten away from us. So we agreed it was time to meet for lunch. Sitting at a restaurant table, we ate and drank our way through 50 years, hitting high points like stones skipping across water. It began to feel like hardly any time had passed at all. Our voices had retained more of a sameness than our bodies, but another kind of sameness took over, one deeply planted in formative roots.

Then came the real kicker. All that time in Boston, you’d think maybe our paths would cross. Then we learned we were both seasonal Vineyarders for about three decades. That was the seismic event of our lunch. For most of the time we hadn’t seen each other, he and his wife had a home in Edgartown and we had a home in Menemsha. Makes you realize this Island is indeed four times the size of Manhattan.

Next it was time for the wives to meet. This was an obvious step toward establishing this new relationship, and how much rekindling would be needed. This called for another meal at another restaurant. From the moment they discovered they had a friend in common, Mary and Paula hit it off. Ever since, we have become a casual foursome, checking in with one another, visiting each other’s homes and generally cavorting into elderhood.

From time to time, I open my high school archive to stare at our photos, marveling at how the simple passage of time can resemble ancient history.

Arnie Reisman and his wife, Paula Lyons, regularly appear on the weekly NPR comedy quiz show, Says You! He also writes for the Huffington Post.