One life-long friend, a kid I first met in second grade, has been on my mind for a while even though I haven't seen him in almost twenty years. We have been friends for almost 60 years. Our own kids have grown up and we are looking at empty nests and a down-sized life in retirement. He lives in Silicon Valley. I live on the slope above the Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico. Those two places are pretty far apart in many ways.
Our time together was a little awkward at first. I complained about the traffic and the stressful and irrational life that folks lead in the Bay Area. He related, for the third time, an unpleasant experience he had travelling in New Mexico about fifteen years ago. We had a couple beers and burgers at a roadside restaurant and drove over the coastal ranges and along Highway 1. We stopped at a few places. We saw a Gray Whale and her calf swimming among the rocks near Santa Cruz. Many of our former experiences involved time spent in cars together and the afternoon drive seemed natural. It was a pleasant time but a little stiff.
Later that evening we talked more and watched a couple music DVDs of aging rock stars that we liked back in the 1970s. His wife was part of the conversation so we were trying to explain and elaborate on our mutual experiences. We talked of other mutual friends we had. We actually lived on the same dorm floor in college so we knew a bunch of people. We had a few small town college adventures and not all of them involved wheels or alcohol. Slowly the years started to peel away.
Finally we were talking about high school and grade school and cub scouts. Or school burned down in second grade so we spent three years huddled in make-shift classrooms in church basements. It was tough on the kids but maybe tougher on the teachers. Then we went on to stories about "the old neighborhood". We had the run of the place in ways that today's kids will never know. Back then it was a semi-rural suburban area and only sparsely developed. Little league games were played in an old wheat field. We were all so cool with little wheat stalks hanging out of out mouths. We had wars throwing Osage Oranges at each other. They looked soft but hurt like hell if you got hit. He used the term "first woods" at one point to relate a story. We had a "first" woods and a "second" woods but that term probably hasn't been spoken in fifty years and it just popped out of his mouth as if he used it every day. We were both surprised -- me to hear it again and him to have spoken it. That opened the flood gate and all sorts of stories poured out. Tales of running from snakes and chasing rabbits in the cornfield. We remembered the old abandoned trolley line that was unused since the 1904 World's Fair. We recounted our adventures in the creek that flowed through the Second Woods that was once called Dead Horse Creek -- what a great name for our adventures back in the 1950s. We dug a deep "fox hole" out in the First Woods and used it as sort of a club house. It was camouflaged so no one would see it unless they knew it was there. My brother caught pleurisy from the dampness and a telephone lineman fell into the fox hole so we had to fill it in. We talked for hours and started up again the next day on yet another short road trip. We had most of it covered by the time my visit was over. We remembered a few things differently but most of it seemed to be right.
This was the tail-end of a trip to the Bay Area for a wedding of another old friend...his fourth. That went well. Then I spent a couple days with my cousin on his houseboat and we relived family history and shared stories and remembrances and drank some beer. Family, friends and remembrances are common and basic but are one of our most prized and cherished possessions. The time we spend together is a precious gift.
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