Age, Distance Can’t Void 1934 Pledge

Four men in their 80s came together from different parts of the country on New Year’s Eve to drink champagne on a street corner, fulfilling a vow they made as boys in 1934.

Sixty-six years ago, the four pals pledged to meet on New Year’s Eve, 1999, at the spot where they had their one and only run-in with the law. They even put it down on paper.

When the four men met on the street corner at 7 p.m. with their wives and several other friends, they shouted with glee.

“A friend for that long is a friend forever,” said John Quast, 80, the only one still living in St. Paul.

When they were all in their mid-teens, the four were taken downtown in a police wagon after they constructed a barricade to stop drivers on Halloween.

When the drivers stopped, the boys put boxes behind the cars. Then they threw eggs at the drivers when they got out of their cars.

The four friends were separated soon after their vow but kept in touch. Quast hadn’t seen two of his pals, Stanley Goodsill of Ridgeland, S.C., and Dudley Warner of San Diego, since shortly after World War II. But Willard Allstrom of Rye, N.Y., visited occasionally.

When Goodsill married in 1951, his wife, Penny, marveled that he still kept the contract in his bureau.

“In this family, we keep our promises, and this seemed like a really important one,” she said.

That all four friends were able to make it to their old hangout was amazing. The odds that all four men would survive to 80 or beyond were less than 1.5%, said Allstrom, 81, a retired insurance actuary.

Quast is a retired dentist. Goodsill, 81, was an accountant. Warner, 81, managed wineries.

Over the past 10 years, the friends kept mentioning the pact, though Warner wasn’t eager to return to Minnesota, where the New Year’s Eve temperature might be minus-30, Quast said. (He got lucky--temperatures were in the 30s.)

“Finally we kept sort of nagging each other and it happened,” Quast said Saturday. “We didn’t think we’d live long enough to have the event, but when you’re 15 or 16 years old, that seems like 2,000 years” away.

After dinner at a fancy restaurant, they gathered to tell old stories. They were so wrapped up reminiscing that they didn’t notice when the new year arrived.

“About a quarter after 12, we realized that it was midnight, and we did open champagne,” Quast said.

All of them realize the gathering is unlikely to be repeated.

“I don’t think we’ll see all four together ever again,” Quast said.