What Were You Really Like?

If I had a time machine, there would be so many people I’d like to see again. I’d start with the man who gave me life then disappeared for four years before exiting the planet. My mother probably comes in a close second. Raised in a strict rural German Catholic culture, she proved unable to open herself up to maternal feelings that might have been lingering there. Maybe the next time it would be different?

Then there’s another group. Folks who entered into my life for a brief period of time before disappeared again. I was recently commiserating with one of my salon compatriots about old friends and past companions. With our collective miles under the belt, we’ve both had many casual, close and a few profound friendships and relationships.

While some of my friends won’t admit it, I know there’s been several who have acquiesced to ‘Facebook stalking’ and/or perusing ‘Classmates.com’ in hopes of finding old school chums, friends, associates, love interests and other assorted contacts made over the years.

My belief is that you leave something of yourself with everyone you come into contact with. Granted, you are a different person now than you were back then but if you have ‘history’ with someone even for a brief period of time, the connection is still there.

The categories where old acquaintances can be found vary with time and place. It really comes down to meaningful events in your life even if for only short periods of time. There’re all life sketches, painted a different color for everyone, and yet poignant reminders of one’s past life.

Photo courtesy of Jerry Hoffman

One of my regrets is that almost all of those kids I hung around with in grade school have long since scattered to the winds of time. It would have been so fascinating to find out how their lives turned out after growing up in Highland Park.

The Army had a profound effect on me although I didn’t realize it at the time. My two-year enlistment was ripe with hundreds of storylines, personal antidotes, and character studies. Events happened and were forgotten only to resurface years later when nudged forward by a song, comment, or photograph. It was a colorful kaleidoscope of military images buried deep in my memory bank. There were Drill Sergeants straight out of hell, bunkmates who were anti-social, lost young men, gung-ho John Wayne types, rumblings of a far-off Asian war, and a youthful lusting for the opposite sex.

Straight out of Basic Training, I worked as a reporter at the Presidian, the post newspaper, at the Presidio of San Francisco. My boss, the Sergeant Major, took a fatherly role in pointing me in the right direction (the Army way of doing things.) There was Mara, the office sexpot. She was a sad lost young woman, raised in an abusive household, whose striking good looks proved to be her downfall. The Colonel in charge seemed to hate enlisted men and life in general. I was introduced to the theater (in San Francisco, mind you) by a young German immigrant who had been drafted only weeks after arriving in the states.

As far as my other batshit bunkmates went, I had them all. A hustler (seriously, a working pimp), several deadbeats, an actor (really good), an artist (who hated Joan Baez?) and a squirrel cage of other characters. All destined for success or failure in one form or another.

Living in Europe on two separate occasions also supplied me with lasting memories of colorful characters, sad creatures, and intimate cerebral partners for late night salons.

There was my old roommate I called ‘animal,’ who only lived with me briefly but even then, left a memorable impression. Tiny Bailey, another lost soul from Arizona, who escaped an alcoholic mother to seek solace in Denmark then ended up leaving for Israel instead. The Guy from Canada who lived with a local family and was treated like royalty and Maria, my pal at the Danish laundry.

After I returned back to the states, there was a plethora of friends, close and not so close, who passed in and out of my life. The guy from Kentucky who took me in when I moved out after a racist rant from my mother about my girlfriend at the time. Close contacts that never went very far. For some that was a good thing. For others, I wish I was still in touch.

Those memories ended bundled up as a play entitled ‘PTV’ for which I still have high hopes in the future. It’s a kaleidoscope of wonderful memories: meeting ‘the one’ for the first time, learning to love television production and direction, real estate stumbles and success and now, closer to home, writing nine original songs for the production.

Past Girlfriends are always a topic of curiosity for most men. This kind of inquiry could seem awkward but it doesn’t have to be. For me, each of those women were charming, interesting, and a delight to know in their own way. There were a few others less memorable and my time spent with them was more easily forgotten. Yet with each, there was some ‘history’ and it was good.

Where there was history, there are memories. The key here is to glance into the past but not linger there. I think it’s human nature to want to know about past acquaintances no matter how close or vapid they might have been. They were all, in a way, a reflection of who I was at that time in my life. A point in time that can’t be returned, replaced, or replicated.

There can still be some poignant memories nevertheless. A cryptic e-mail after 48 years stating simply: ‘you did become a writer.’ Occasional e-mail exchanges that never went anywhere. A phone call out of the blue at 58 years for a brief 10 minutes. Then silence again.

Another former friend with whom I crossed paths after sixty some years is still refusing to recognize anything beyond the fact that ‘there was some history there.’ Yeah, like for a year and a half worth but who’s counting? But that’s the way she wants to see our past and I have to respect it.

Memories are like good conversations. They’re ripe with warmth, delight, and carefully construed images dancing in your head. What really happened, who knows? What did the other person feel or remember, who knows?

Like a necklace of pearls, they shine and reflect and say something about who you are, who you were and how far you’ve come. Then it’s time to put the pearls away, look up at life and continue down that pathway of reality. And as Jackie Gleason famously said: “And thanks for the memories.”

Name Tags and Placemats

Getting reacquainted with old friends, associates and casual acquaintances can be an interesting time travel into one’s past. Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure, disappointment, and soul-satisfying experience of revisiting my own past lives through those encounters. Each reunion is different and each revealed as much about myself as it did them.

As we’ve all travel through life, we’ve encountered other folks, aside from family, that have impacted us in one manner or another. For me, it was a couple of guys in high school, my barracks buddies in the Army, a couple of strays in Denmark as lost as I was, and work place encounters that lasted only for the duration of the job itself.

My fiftieth high school class reunion was a classic example of this. I graduated on May 31^st of 1961 and, with rare exception, never saw my classmates ever again. That is, until our class reunion fifty years later. The event was well orchestrated with a handsome binder of memories, mass (which I didn’t attend), and a class only gathering in the old high school gym. The next day there was an afternoon picnic at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, spouses, girlfriends, and others invited.

My reunion with some of my old classmates had begun weeks earlier with several phone calls wanting to reconnect. Coffee encounters afterwards solidified our pre-reunion/union and paved the way for future dinners with the wives and solo coffee salons. Surprisingly, we seldom brought up our high school years and, instead, focused on our past fifty years and the miles traveled. While some of those folks have now passed on, the bulk remain good friends and coffee companions.

My years at the Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting were among the most cherished of my working career. Several friends from that era of the early-to-mid-seventies are still Facebook friends and blog commentators. Our collective miles traveled haven’t diminished their or my enthusiasm to talk current events, personal trials and tribulations and reflections of that ‘chamelot’ period in our lives. It’s almost as if time has shrunk and we’re both back to our old routines and bad habits; cherished or hidden as they may be.

Occasionally a name from my past will connect with me on Facebook. Curiously enough, after my welcoming response, most of them disappear and are never heard of again. Why did they bother in the first place; beats me?

Another side of that ‘So, how have you been?’ encounter have been several unexpected meet ups that led to disappointment and self-examination. These are the folks who, undenounced to me, turned out to be simply name tags and place settings from my past lives. There’s sometimes a fine line between being mildly interested and really caring about past connections. Each question, statement, or pause can be a test to be passed or failed based on the sincerity felt by the other party.

The art of conversation could be seen as a test. Words say a lot. Conversations mean something. Real conversations are priceless. I thrive on substance and not empty calories. These folks seem to have traveled a different pathway than I have. We may have once strolled the same lane but the divide that drew us apart has never left.

While some folks are willing to let you back into their lives, others aren’t so kind. My conversations with them, sparse as they’ve been, are all surface chatter, much of it contrived, and all very safe. It’s as if they’ve wrapped themselves up in this impenetrable armor that won’t let real emotions, true feelings and honest appraisals of our past lives become part of the conversation. To be honest, I can get more intimacy from a band-aid or Vaseline.

Photo Credit: Bob Getterz

Some of my coffee companions have chided me for caring about those lost connections from my past. ‘Let it go, it’s ancient history,’ they say. I disagree with their appraisal that the past is better left unearthed. Sometimes those past encounters can fill in the spaces where memories fail and questions still linger. Those encounters, while scotch taped with weak smiles and dishonest head nodding, are still a part of my past that interests me.

All those past connections with friends and casual time-sharing associates are glimpses into a younger me; good, bad, confused and trying. Under the crown of elder or senior, I find myself on an interesting journey of self-discovery. How did I get here? Why did I end up like this? Although I can’t change the past, how can I embrace what once was, accept that all friendships don’t last forever and recognize that as humans we all change, evolve, and hopefully grow in our own ways.

While I’d love to think that all past acquaintances, friends, associates, and casual encounters will be around forever, I know that is not the case. Relationships come and go; some longer than others. If we have just a couple of true, honest friendships that pass the test of time, we are damn lucky.

In that sense, I’ve been a very lucky man. I’ve had some great folks pass through my life and enrich me for the time spent with them. For those name tags and place settings, I wish them the very best. I have my memories of our past, real as I think it can be, and that’s what I’ll hold on to. Foolish or not, I want to remember the good times and accept the not so good as my reality when I was a younger man.

The Next Plateau

As she got older, my mother used to speak despairingly about ‘old people.’ At the time, she was in her mid-eighties and my step-father in his mid-nineties. They were still dancing occasionally and playing cards at the church at least three or four times a week. They did at least one or two cross country road trips a year and made special trips to Vegas too. They had an active and busy lifestyle.

I was always a bit embarrassed when my mother would begin one of her lectures about those crabby, complaining, always negative old folks. Whether at church, the senior center or dance halls, some of the old people would complain about their aches and pains. They didn’t want to pay taxes. They didn’t like how government governed. Their sporting teams weren’t being well coached and kids nowadays (oh, don’t get me started.) My mother wanted none of it.

At first, I thought that old people shouldn’t complain about other old people. I get it now. If your mind is in a different place and your attitude is better, then objecting to all that group’s negativity is perfectly normal. As the advertisement goes: Age is just a number and mine’s unlisted. Except it should read: Age is a mind-set and mine is still in search of more…of anything.

While my body can’t deny it’s age or the toll that decades of running has done to my joints; my mind is still clear and functioning everyday (I hope). My social skills have only improved marginally and my wife has all but given up on improving me in that area. Yet, overall, reaching seventy or eighty or ninety for that matter counts less than where your mind, attitude, aptitude and focus is at.

This is the next (or next to last) plateau for almost all of us. Class reunions, family gatherings, group photo shoots all remind us that there is no time to be wasting. A closer examination and we find that someone is usually missing from the photograph. As the cliché’s go; ‘Appreciate what you have now and not into the future.’ ‘Count each day as a gift’ and ‘enjoy the moment while it lasts.’

My mother wasn’t the most subtle when it came to criticizing other’s behavior but I think her heart was in a good place. Looking back on her life, working career and later on, the life she built with my step-father, I think she was just grabbing every opportunity she could to continue growing and learning and living. She got it right.

Treasure your friends and family. They’re the only ones you got for the journey ahead. Accept the aches and pains of growing old, keep your body and head moving every day, and be grateful each morning that you’ve got another day to do it all over again.

Fragile Friendships

Photo Credit: Jerry Hoffman

Friends are like life-experiences, some collected and treasured for the moment, others vaguely remembered then turning to dust. A few lock onto some corner of our brain and remain there for the rest of our lives. Generally speaking, the majority of them are scattered back into that dustbin of old memories; good and sad mixed together.

I was never ‘friends first’ with my two girlfriends, one in high school, the other in college. Perhaps that’s why neither one lasted more than a couple of years. If we had started out as simply friends, our relationship might have progressed to something deeper. ‘Such is life.’

High school friends, Army buddies, first job comrades-in-arms and the like all fall into that same category of fast friends for the moment. Then graduation, discharge or job transfers end the close relationship and oftentimes another one takes its place.

Whether they’ll admit it or not, a lot of folks like to search ‘Facebook’ for traces of their old friends, past acquaintances, co-workers, boyfriends, girlfriends, and lovers. It’s a safe way to scratch away the fog of time and find out ‘whatever happened to’ with some degree of accuracy.

Last year I wrote to an old friend I hadn’t heard from in some time. I got no response. We were best friends in the early years. We shared the drama and trauma of high school, attended sporting events together, and often times double-dated. Then he went off to the monastery and me to college. We got reacquainted after our 50th class reunion. My wife and I saw him and his lovely wife several times here before he began ghosting me and that was the end of it.

We have several friends who are going through major life changes now. It’s almost as if the writing is on the proverbial wall. Fewer get-togethers for the theater and other outings. They are moving on with their lives; new interests, and consciously or otherwise, shedding the cloak of the past to wrap themselves in the newness of new life experiences. Our old friends as we used to know them are slowly changing even as we both move on with our own respective lives.

Long term friends are a real rarity, especially among men. My latest play ‘Widow’s Waltz’ deals with this issue. Add the perspective of single older gay men and the complications compound exponentially. All the standard clichés pop up here: people change, time moves on, ‘things’ happen in our lives. The play was a challenge to write but deeply satisfying at the same time.

Over this last summer, I’ve been able to solidify my ‘coffee and chat’ sessions with five solid partners with whom I can share general, specific, bland, sometimes outrageous, interesting, and occasionally intimate details of our respective lives.

Will it last? Who know? I certainly hope so. We all seem to enjoy the meet-ups and the sharing that goes with it. For now, I want to enjoy the moment, savor the sharing and keep plowing new ground in hopes of solidifying the friendships that have grown from this shared experience.

Growing Old as a Man

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s different for men.

One of the advantages of having lived through multiple decades is the ability to look back and reflect on past and current changes in our lives. Most men seem to place those events into simple categories such as youth, education, marriage, kids, jobs and retirement. On the other hand, many women have a much broader perspective of these subtle changes occurring all around us.

Seldom talked about among older couples are subjects such as health, sex, socialization, relationships and the fear of dying. Many men think they’ve got it all figured out, but in reality, seldom do.

You could probably sub-title that period in their lives as: The fourth quarter, the final lap, final tabulation and/or reflecting on those who have died before them. Men have a lot harder time dealing with this final chapter in their lives and all the accompanying accoutrements of a life long lived.

Class reunions can be poignant reminder that a lot of our classmates won’t be joining us for another decade of remembrances. The decades pile up and our ‘Camelot’ period of work or the service or youthful adventures soon becomes ancient history.

If we men are lucky enough to have someone beside us: new, previously-engaged, or a veteran of the long haul - we can better face that final curtain with the comfort of companionship. Usually two pairs of eyes and one good brain can better focus on the time ahead.

Women seem better equipped for this later stage in life. Perhaps it’s because most are natural-born multi-taskers. I don’t know if it’s the result of a lifetime of caring and nurturing of others; kids and parents alike or more ease and comfort in social engagement. Women seem more intuitive, with common sense instincts about the circle of life. Wherever their strength comes from, many women have proven more adaptable to the twists and turns of our later years.

The recurring mantra, repeated among the smarter set toward their spouses, seems to be ‘Now, don’t you get old on me.’ Women have this constant concern that their other half will begin to show the signs of old age. Growing rigidity, a lack of flexibility, a lack of tolerance for younger generations, concern for rising prices, social changes and a seemingly disregard to the tried and true that was good enough for their own generation. Many old men think they should be listened to simply because they’re talking. ‘The old men at the coffee shop’ (one of my favorite whipping points) is a case in point.

Time can be a cruel reminder of life’s frailties and that ticking time bomb called lifecycle. Sometimes it just makes sense to stop and listen to what’s being suggested by one’s better half instead of trying to figure it out all by yourself.

Said the old man still trying to listen as best he can.