In the summer of 1960, I took a month-long road trip with three high school classmates in my family’s 1954 Chevy. The plan: drive south from Delaware to Fort Lauderdale and then return, having fun along the way and staying out of trouble. We succeeded. Mostly.

John and Jeff were, no other label works, hardcore nerds. Dick and I had one foot in the nerd camp and one foot in the “in-group” camp. In high school, we did what nerds did back then: listen to Jonathan Winters records, play bridge, dream up crazy road rallies, and never — oh, horrors! — mingle with members of the opposite sex.

Trip highlights: trying to sleep in the Dismal Swamp (chosen for its forbidding name) in Virginia while swatting away mosquitoes; getting baked to a crisp on a Cape Hatteras beach; and drinking from “Colored Only” water fountains at service stations in South Carolina, a sassy stunt which nearly got us killed by the redneck employees. In Georgia, one of us checked into a $6/night “tourist cabin,” and the others all snuck in later, only to be kicked out by the owner who screamed, “I know what you boys want. You boys want somethin’ for nuthin’!” Which was true.

One memorable night provided good fodder for a situation comedy. We had arranged to visit a family in Georgia that my parents had known years earlier in New Jersey. Lynn, the daughter in the family, had been in first grade with me. Lynn had raging red hair, deep blue eyes and a non-stop tongue. She also had three friends to parcel out among my friends for a group “blind date.” Let’s just say that these four Southern belles were way more advanced in the ways of teenage love than our clueless tribe. That said, we escaped with our virginity intact and good tales to rehash.

We never drank a drop of alcohol during the trip, but we did drink a lot of milk. Our main vice involved smoking Rum Crook cigars, which seemed right sophisticated to us.

The four of us got together only one time after that trip, shortly before the 50th Class Reunion in 2010. It was a bit awkward, since we’d traveled four very different life paths, but we enjoyed reliving the adventure.

Fast forward to the present Dick died last October. He had been a very successful importer of exotic wines and cheeses, but a fast-paced lifestyle combined with decades of heavy drinking took its toll.

Jeff traveled to Portland, Maine from San Diego to join me in a celebration-of-life party at Dick’s apartment. Jeff had spent his working career chartering a fishing boat and living a marijuana laced alternative lifestyle. He didn’t take life seriously, although he thought Donald Trump might not be bad for the country.

Jeff had tried to contact Jon to invite him to the party honoring Dick, but he couldn’t reach him. Jon had moved to Montreal in the late ‘60’s to avoid the Vietnam draft and never returned. A brilliant guy — he skipped his high school senior year to attend Wesleyan University — Jon worked in the computer business. He never married, never dated and had few friends. There was always a touching sweetness about him, though, and he treasured his memories of our trip, probably the highlight of his life.

A few days ago, a friend in Delaware contacted me and passed along Jon’s phone number in Montreal. So I gave him a call at 6:30 one night. Jon answered and explained that he usually went to bed around that time, but we could talk for a while. He said he was doing “okay” considering the awful state of his body and his fading memory. (Again, this guy is brilliant; at our Reunion in 2010 we began calling him “Google” as he seemed to know something about everything.) He explained that his computer had died, and that he now spent his days reading a 1975 addition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. He did not plan to return to the U.S. so he had let his passport expire. He said he had quit drinking heavily, but still smoked. He thanked me several times for the phone call.

That call to Jon really got to me. He sounded older at age 75 than my Dad had at age 97; he never fulfilled the promise of his extraordinary mind; he didn’t have friends or children around to raise his spirits on the down days — or any day. But I’m so glad I made the call, though it made me feel a little older than just a little old.

David Treadwell, a Brunswick writer, welcomes commentary or suggestions for future “Just a Little Old” columns. dtreadw575@aol.com.