I like it. I can walk to (I usually run, though) to virtually every site that bears any real significance in the history of me.
The people I went to school with must like it here too. I see them everywhere. Tuesday mornings at breakfast I am waited on by Teri, who went to all my schools, including Sunday schools. Another guy (Bobby) walks everywhere. He was a successful engineer until the day he woke up with no idea of who he was, how to speak, how to walk. . . (encephalitis). He eventually earned most of himself back but continues to suffer sporadic neurological problems and now travels by foot to his new occupation as a grocery bagger (I know they call the high school kids that work there "bag boys" but I've never heard anyone call an adult bagger a "bag man").
I could go on but you'd have to know these people to appreciate the way I feel when I see them. We've been passed through some type of time acceleration device.
There are frequent and random encounters with the members of the class of 1979...the haggard homecoming queen, the nerd (now known as Dr. Nerd) .
Seeing them makes me wonder what it must be like to be seen by them. You can't underestimate what 30 years of good or bad habits can do for or to you.
My wife looks virtually the same as she did that Friday night in November 31 years ago when I met her at a football game. I, on the other hand, do not. Years of working and running for fun in the sun have given be the rough appearance of being bagged up and beaten about with small sticks. I'm bony and wiry and weathered.
What a catch..
I weigh the same as I always have (about 145-150) and I could run 20 or so miles Slowly, I'll admit) if you asked me to right now. That is my plus side.
Last night at the gym, perched from my observation deck on the treadmill, I watched an older couple come in. The man was tall and athletic looking and sported a feathered, parted-in-the-middle hair style that was popular about a quarter of a century ago. The lady was frumpish with rounded shoulders and lumbered about with a shuffled gait. She had a longer version of her husband's haircut. A few miles later, it dawned on me that I knew them. I had played in a really bad bar band with the man when I was 18. He was a few years older and married to this same lady at the time and she was not at all frumpy but they did have the same hairdo..
I'm cursed with a memory for names and faces. If I wasn't, I think life would be a bit easier. I could wander about town, never recognizing all these middle aged people and never having to be reminded of my middle aged-ness. You could say I'm vain but it wouldn't be true. I do nothing to help myself out. My wife and daughters have selected and purchased my clothes for years, I wear uniform shirts with frayed collars and torn pockets every weekday from 7:30 am to 5:00 pm, and I don't pay attention to my toenails, nose, and/or ear hair like I should. Gross.
I don't care how old I look or how old anyone else looks for that matter. I just love life and I want more of it. I don't need to be reminded of how much or little I have left of it when I'm minding my own business, standing in line at Target or eating breakfast..
The man I saw at the gym last night is named Ed, and his wife's name is "Bernie". It must have been a drag to be named Bernice as a 20 year old newlywed in 1981. Unfortunately for the three of us, she looked more of a Bernice than a Bernie on the evening of November 6th, 2007.
On the rare occasion (prior to last night) that I would hear "Too Rolling Stoned" by Robin Trower or "I Heard It On The X" by ZZTop, I would think of Ed and Bernie I wonder what ever happened to them. Did he quit playing? Did they move away? Did they stay together and make a family?
I think back to the last time I saw them 27 years ago. It is "last call" and I'm standing on the tiny stage beside Ed (as all good 2nd guitarists do) while he hacks away a really dreadful and endless solo on his 1973 Cherry Sunburst Gibson Les Paul Standard. The barmaid is kicking out the stragglers and begins turning on the fluorescent lights. Our amps begin buzzing from the 60 cycle hum.
We are at the Cork-N-Bottle lounge, in the Sunshine Mall which, if it had not been torn down to make way for some much needed new condominiums, would be located
. . . about a mile from the gym.
No comments:
Post a Comment