Just like most people that grow up and leave their childhood homes, everybody seems to go seperate routes.
Joe goes to the college of his choice, Tim joins the Navy and Louie embarked on a life of crime. (I did all three, I hacked around in community college, joined the army and the other day I tore a tag off of a matteress)
Anyway, they all seem to ge their seperate ways.
The guy up the street and I did the same thing but we stayed in touch throughout the years. He went to school, married, raised three kids and bought a house a couple of towns over.
When I was in town I would drop in on them and say hi. Frankly, it was a very nice thing for me to do to keep my sanity as visiting family can sometimes be stressful, especially when you were a traveler on the road less traveled.
Anyway, he's done well for himself and is in a somewhat semi-retired state and has a pair of homes, a winter home and a summer home.
I have not been to his winter home, but I have been to his summer home a few times. It is wonderful, on a lake and in the wilds of the northern part of the country.
What is interesting is that he made his living in the financial world and all of the so-called civilization that goes with it. I would imagine he has attended God knows how many dinners with lumpy mashed potatoes, marble peas and stringy roast beef, complete with the cocktail hour where the politically correct up and comers have two drinks, but don't finish the second.
I, of course, took a different tack. While he was doing what he did for a living and had settled on raising kids and working in the financial world, I was out living day to day and was somewhat adrift. I didn't get into my present career until I was almost 40.
Still, we stayed in touch and when we had the chance we met, if for nothing more than a drink or cup of coffee. He is the friend I have kept for well over five decades and it grounds me to a certain extent to have someone from childhood to swap notes with.
What is interesting is that now that he is in semi-retirement he is living in the wild yet in one of the most civilized places on earth.
His summer home is a log cabin and there is no electricity except for what he grows himself with a couple of solar panels, but there is inside running water for a toilet but little else. It is funny to see someone working on a laptop by kerosene lanterns, yet he has everything he needs there.
The paradox here is that I spent a lot of my younger years living in various little places, tipis, camps, a sailboat, and yet after I got older I moved into a house in the burbs like a lot of other people, yet here is my oldest friend spending summers in a wonderful log cabin on a lake with few of the trappings of the so-called civilized world.
People often say that a guy like this has it made, but it really isn't 100% so. He's had things in life happen and he's taken a few knocks here and there. He's had one of his kids stumble and fall a couple of times and I'm sure it has been hard to watch that happen, but the kid is doing all right these days.
In fact, his son is actually on my short list of friends in his own right, and not because of his father. He turned out OK and I respect him.
Few of us truly go through life and get off scot free. We have to pick up our own pieces and get on with our lives as we see fit. He had to bury his wife some time ago and things like that are true equalizers. They happen to all of us and there is noo power on heaven or earth that can change that.
He doesn't know it, but after he lost his wife I was a tad worried about him. I was somewhat afraid he'd find comfort in some babe 30 years younger than him, but my fears were unfounded. A few years later he married a wonderful women about his age. She's a good match for him.
Our lives have been totally different and while his children were growing up and I'd visit it was fun to watch them and hear their stories about school and things that are a part of growing up. Meanwhile I was in some far flung remote outpost doing something that was not necessarily profitable, but interesting to me.
His kids were a little older when I told the family about a certain part of a sailboat trek I took and I started to run low on cash. The youngest asked me where I managed to find work and it was funny to see the look on his fce when I told him I simpply ran a load whisky to the Indians.
I had to be somewhat careful when they were younger to keep them from getting to many ideas.
Still, I have to say that my friend gave me the nicest gift I have had in a couple of decades. He doesn't know it, but he did.
He and his wonderful wife took me to a simple lunch out alongside a small lake and it was dead simple. We roasted a couple of hot dogs. It doesn't get a whole lot simpler.
It wasn't the food itself, although it was delicious. They were not mainstream dogs, but a local product. It was the place we ate. The lake was gorgeous, the wweather delightful and the company superb. It doesn't get any better than that.
We were out in God's little slice of heaven eating basics and although there wasn't a light pole or a toilet for miles, it was the most civilized lunch I have ever had.
To the one person that I have had as a friend for over fifty years, I thank you. I am lucky to have you on my very short list of friends.
my other blog is: http://officerpiccolo.blogspot.com/ http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/
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