Two doors apart, a friendship that lasts

For Will Johnson ’06 and Christi Jay Wells ’06, Homecoming & Family Weekend meant returning to the place where they had found each other — and begun figuring out who they would become.

Back on campus Saturday, 20 years after graduation, they remembered meeting on move-in day, two doors apart on the first floor of Milner Hall. There had been ping-pong games, Political Science classes and friends in common. Underneath it all was a connection Christi Jay still recognized.

“I think we’re just really of a mind in terms of core values,” she said. “I think we kind of linked up with each other in that way.”

Listening to them talk, Homecoming’s meaning emerged in the small exchanges. Christi Jay reminded Will how studying in Mexico and learning Spanish had shaped his life. Will remembered Christi Jay’s semester in Munich. Each held part of the other’s story.

“Besties all through college,” Christi Jay said.

They had never been roommates, a distinction she thought might have helped maintain that friendship. “I’m pretty messy,” she said. “I don’t know if we would’ve been as good friends if we had shared a room.”

Will acknowledged that he was no neat freak. He remembered their friendship moving between studying and simply having fun, with plenty of ping-pong along the way.

Those ordinary hours had given them time to know each other. Shared classes gave them ideas to discuss. Living nearby allowed a conversation to continue beyond the classroom. They could explore what they believed in the company of someone who cared about the same questions.

For so many Guilfordians, Homecoming offers a chance to return to those relationships. Someone remembers you before the career, before the years accumulated, when you were still discovering what mattered and how to act on it.

At Guilford, Will and Christi Jay had found a place to practice.

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They arrived in 2002, with the country still absorbing the consequences of Sept. 11 and moving toward war in Iraq. They remembered linking arms and sitting in a downtown Greensboro street during protests. They remembered a campus connected to the questions and responsibilities of the surrounding community.

Will volunteered as an English tutor at a Greensboro library. He watched Guilfordians participate in the city’s truth and reconciliation work. He found professors who took students seriously and connected idealism to the practical business of creating change.

That was what he had hoped to find.

Will was not raised Quaker, but he had grown up around Quakers and respected their sense of purpose. A conversation with then Peace and Conflict Studies professor Vernie Davis during a campus visit helped persuade him that Guilford was the right place.

Vernie has long since retired but their relationship continued after college. They still keep in touch, sometimes meeting for dinner.

For Christi Jay, Guilford’s influence began partly with what the College was willing to see in her.

She had struggled in high school and earned a GED. She did not arrive with a conventional record of academic success.

“Guilford kind of took a chance on me,” she said.

Here, she found an environment where she could thrive. She discovered Lindy Hop through a student club, joined the choir and participated in an opera production. She studied music alongside political science, became a musicology professor and wrote a book about jazz dancing and music.

Her life’s direction, she said, began taking shape during her freshman year. Like many Guilfordians, she met her wife, Elizabeth Heller ’08, here.

Guilford changed how she understood other people, too. She had arrived from Manhattan carrying assumptions about the South. The people she met complicated those assumptions. The region became an adoptive home.

Will and Christi Jay’s friendship offered another space for questioning familiar ideas. Once, they held hands and walked around campus to see how people would respond to platonic affection between two people who, as Christi Jay recalled, were men at the time.

Mostly, people accepted it.

They remembered the walk as a small experiment in prompting reflection. Will connected it to a principle he learned at Guilford: act, reflect and act again.

Saturday offered another opportunity to reflect.

Will found comfort in familiar surroundings and encouragement in the changes. His children enjoyed the campus swings.

Christi Jay described walking paths she remembered from an earlier version of herself and recognizing her own growth. But the most special part was seeing people she deeply loved without necessarily keeping in regular contact.

“Just giving hugs and catching up on life.”

Across generations, Guilford friendships carry that possibility. Homecoming & Family Weekend makes room to discover what became of the people who helped shape you, and to tell them what their presence meant.

For Will and Christi Jay, it began two doors apart. They’ve been close ever since.