Old Boyfriend for Lunch, Husband Included

The story is simple enough. Old acquaintances, let’s call them friends, maybe even one time lovers-of-a-sort reconnect through Facebook. Even though it begins as a tired cliché, unexpected connections slowly form. Living thousands of miles apart, their chances of meeting again are next to nil until a class reunion beckons one of them home once more.

Thus begins a play or a novel I haven’t written yet. The basic concept has been tugging at my curiosity, seeping into my consciousness for a while now. Relationships, even in their simplest form, can be complex, confusing and a puzzle for the mind, if one wants to go there.

A luncheon is arranged. Of course, the current husband would be included. How crass not to invite him along when it’s just an old boyfriend and nothing could possibly happen after fifty plus years. Or could it?

The old boyfriend is calm in his skin. The miles traveled and past emotions haven’t sublimated his curiosity because it’s held in check with a life well lived and future miles anticipated. The meeting will answer a few of those vexing questions that have arisen since their first e-mail re-connection. The current husband - not a problem. The old boyfriend is curious what her partner of 50 years is 'like'. He was the one who married her. He was the one who won her heart.

My treatment doesn’t have the humor of ‘Barefoot in the Park’ meets the drama of ‘Same time, Next Year’ yet but the intent is there. The reunion could go any number of ways. It could be a total bust, an embarrassment for everyone involved, a rekindling of old feelings, or unanswered questions still left unresolved. It’s anything but predictable. As the day of the encounter draws near, plans begin to unravel. At least that’s the premise of the play as it stands right now.

One scenario is a mix up in meetings, perhaps a time delay, and a change of plans. Suddenly that oft-anticipated meeting might not happen after all. Another scenario is that she decides to bail out at the last minute. One of the parties is relieved, the other not surprised that the meeting never took place in the first place.

 

I won’t reveal which scenario is edging for prominence in my mind. The parties involved already know. It’s the accumulation of a series of e-mails back and forth that only hinted of getting reacquainted. Perhaps it was never meant to be in the first place.

It’s like a who-done-it without villains or heroes. It’s a conclusion that many observers would have guessed correctly if left to their own devices. It’s reality that one of the parties hasn’t grasped yet. It’s the ‘real world’ minus its cloak of inquiring e-mails that hint of promises made.

It’s that often-asked yet seldom answered question of ‘whatever happened to?’ The emotions gone vapid down through the ages and the absent of warm eyes connecting have made any semblance of a real reunion a challenge at best. In the safe setting of salad and entree, true feelings are seldom shared or revealed. Welcome to the real world minus station breaks and advertisements.

There is still a lot of work left to flesh out my characters and give them depth and purpose. Reunions are always fun to write about. I loved writing ‘Club 210’ and thoroughly enjoyed its performances last summer at the Steeple Center in Rosemount. Maybe this treatment will become another play that explores relationships under the microscope of a theatrical performance. It’s made up drama under the guise of a play and only the audience gets to guess if it resembles real life or not.

Then again, perhaps nothing will happen to this idea after all. It might languish in my pile of unfinished manuscripts just begging for time to complete. The premise is a good one. The storyline is intriguing. The real question is whether I can come up with a scenario that people believe. I think I can, because the truth - in all of its unwashed accoutrements - is often more entertaining than fiction itself.

Ghost Writers in the Sky

Brian and I in Slot Canyon

I’ve never been one to read obituaries. A lot of folks I know do that now on a regular basis. Perhaps more to be assured they’re not mentioned there than anything else. I guess at a certain stage in one’s life there finally comes the feeling of mortality. The realization that the long haul ahead has passed by and now some of us are on that downhill side.

As I’ve mentioned in past blogs, I was slow coming out of the starting gate and at a certain point gave up on the notion of maturity as a goal of mine. It wasn’t as much giving up as it was realizing that I liked my life as it was; appropriate for my age or not. With my kids, I could be a kid again. Now with my grandchildren; ditto.

Saturday Long-Distance Bike Ride

So I continued running on a daily basis when others gave in to middle age and more sedate sports like golf or watching football. I upped the ante with marathons, trail running, hiking, mountain biking, long distance biking and just about anything that included non-motorized movement.

Cretin High 50th Class Reunion - 2011

My fiftieth class reunion was a shocker in the number of classmates who weren’t with us anymore. It was only then that it sank in what a precious thing life can be. That brush up against the grim reaper scraped my consciousness once again when I added the link ‘Hippies of the 60s and 70s’ to my Facebook page.

Almost overnight the list of the deceased began to pile up. But these weren’t personal friends or associates from times past. Instead they were my icons and kindred souls on that perilous journey from adolescence to adulthood. They were the artists who wrote the songs, played the music, made the movies and drew up those images in my minds-eye.

They were my trusted advisors and rule-breakers. They were the outlaws and mavericks who dared to think differently and venture where others feared to tread. They were the father-figures I never had and the coach whose rules were made to be broken. They made the movies that stirred my soul and wrote the books that captured my imagination. They helped me dream the dreams and think the impossible.

The list keeps getting longer every day.

To be honest they really weren’t my heroes in the sense of someone to follow. Instead they were the stewards of my focus, inspiration, adoration, hopes, dreams, ambitions and all those sundry illusions of youth all wrapped up in a cool song or transfixed movie that jolted my mind and raised my blood pressure.

I could list the artists and their songs, movies, plays or books that grabbed my gut and shook my innards with an explosion of emotion I hadn’t experienced ever before.

Now a lot of them are gone. Of course, I’ve got YouTube, DVDs, old vinyl and old black and white memory jolts to take me back in time.

If they were still around I’d want to tell them how much their works of art still mean to me. It’s is a road often traveled yet seldom crossed. They took me for quite a ride if only for a minute or two. But it was a great trip and made this whole life journey thing one heck of a grand experience.

I Lost a Friend Today

I lost a friend today…in fact, quite a few over the years.

The list is extensive and began back in grade school, continued on into high school, college, the service, various jobs as well as an odd assortment of creative endeavors. Lumped all together they make up a wonderful cross section of men and women who touched my life in so many different ways.

Some were the result of forced marriages of education or religion or family structures. Others were self-elected and directed encounters of my own choosing. More often than not, it was some commonality of purpose or interest that held us together and bonded our mutual appreciation for each others' company. From the playground to after-school activities to sports to encounters with the opposite sex.

Then as a part of the ever-constant shifting of principles and paradigms and life-altering events in our lives, those friendships came to a close. That pattern has been played out and repeated most of my life. Men, women and couples included.

The first inkling I had that something was changing in my life was right after high school graduation and the immediate purging of our senior ranks for parts unknown. That was even more reinforced at my fiftieth high school reunion when I found myself in the company of old men.

The second inkling of change came during my time in the service. Not only were the friendships with bunkmates, squad members and office workers fleeting at best, even coming home on leave was so painful that I only did it a couple of times.

I hung that moniker on Daniel, my protagonist in “Love in the A Shau,” when he tells his girlfriend that he might not be home for the duration of his time in the service because it would be too painful to reenter civilian life for such a brief period of time only to leave again so quickly.

Returning home after the service brought back that reality in cold harsh terms. Old college buddies had already graduated and moved on to their first jobs. A relationship started before the service gradually lost its luster and lust as maturity and a desire for change found both of us heading off in two different directions.

Then after college, relationships began, endured and ended on a regular basis. It began with my time overseas. Then my first real job in television followed by an assortment of jobs; good and bad. Finally the gradual withdrawal from work so I could focus on a new career as a writer. It was a pattern that was to play out my entire life…and continues to do so even to this day.

Returning home to Minnesota during the Christmas holidays only highlights the gradual shifting of loyalties and friendships. Much like my 50th Cretin high school reunion, I find myself in a world with individuals who have changed their lives as much as I have mine.

Once-a-year Christmas cards with their obligatory yearly update are always fun to peruse and reminisce about past times spent well. But it also brings home the realization that we’ve all gotten older and moved on.

Not long ago, I got a notice from my old high school that yet another of our classmates had died. I never knew him very well. He was handsome, always had the girls, was great at baseball and went east to college after graduation. Now I was staring at his obituary and looking at some pictures of his past life…all neat and clean and final. It gave me reason to pause, reflect for a moment on the luck I’ve had in my life and then think about friends; old and new.

The passing of friendships can be a time of sadness or a joy in the experiences shared. The one bright light is the occasional reconnection with old friends from our distant past. It hasn’t happened too often but when it does, a plethora of pleasant memories usually follow. Despite the fact that we’ve gone off in totally different directions since our last encounter, we somehow manage to reconnect on a personal level which isn’t dependent on our past lives together or apart.

So I’ll continue to mine that vein of past friendships all the while trying to grow new ones at the same time.