Scenes From My Life

I was recently commiserating with one of my salon buddies about old friends and past acquaintances who have traveled through our lives at one point or another. With many collective miles under our belts, my friend and I have both had many casual, some close and a few memorable connections over the years.

While some of my friends won’t admit it, I do know a number of them 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. I find myself fascinated with the age-old question of ‘whatever happened to…’

Some great philosopher once said 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 that person even for a brief period of time, the connection can still be there even years later.

The categories where old acquaintances can be found are too numerous to be listed here. It really comes down to meaningful events in your life if for only short periods of time. They’re like brief scenes from the storybook of your life.

photo courtesy of Jerry Hoffman

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

I didn’t reconnect with any of my Cretin High School classmates until well after our 50th Class reunion. Back in school, I had a small cadre of friends; all of whom were on the college track in school. Then there was me; preordained to go into the trades or the service. A few of us reconnected after the reunion and continue meeting occasionally to this day.

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. It was only a ‘moment in time’ but there were enough instances of brain-burn that I still can’t shake them. Over time, some of those images have become characters in my plays, novellas, and novels.

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, escaped an alcoholic mother to seek solace in Denmark but ended up leaving for Israel instead. There was the guy from Canada who lived with a local family and was treated like royalty and Maria, my pal at the Danish laundry. There were a few even closer contacts that never went very far. For some that was a good thing. For others, I wish I was still in touch.

KTCA television was still evolving and changing from educational television to public television when I began volunteering there on the crew. I was the oldest among the gang but we had one hell of a time taping television programs and learning the trade.

In the eighties, I went on a film shoot to Costa Rica that lasted almost a month. My fellow travelers and I endured three weeks of heat and humidity and deadly tree-hugging snakes. They were a crazy bunch of writers, photo journalists, and adventurers. Any day now, I expect to see one or more of them on some National Geographic Special.

Where there is history, there are memories. The key here is to glance at the past but not to 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 you were at that point in your life. A point in time that can’t be returned, replaced, or replicated.

But can still hold some poignant memories nevertheless. ‘Happy Trails’ to all of them.

Friendships Never Meant to Last

A movie title caught my attention a while back. At first I thought it was pretty dumb but upon further introspection I think they got it ‘spot on.’ The movie title was ‘She’s Just Not That into You.’ It was your classic New York romance about unrequited love, breakups and the eternal search for that ‘perfect’ someone…and in the end, one sided relationships. I thought it could easily fit another side of relationships - not the romantic kind, just plain simple friendships instead.

It sounds terribly harsh, haughty and perhaps even a bit cruel. I’m talking about people from your past who have since disappeared from your life. Friends and acquaintances who have faded away or didn’t live up to your expectations; real or otherwise. They may have been there for important milestones in your life but are no longer are even a smudge on the relationship radar. What happened to those folks? Perhaps they didn’t follow through or fell short of what you expected from them. Perhaps you failed them and the ending was mutual. As disappointing as their absence is, their memories can still bring a smile to my memory.

Of course, no one can make someone else their friend if they don’t want to be. It’s terribly subjective and handicapped by a less than thorough knowledge of their motives. Were there extraneous factors, whether recognized or not, that contributed to the demise of that friendship? Was it something you did or didn’t do? Was it something you said even in honesty that was taken the wrong way?

When I first came back from Europe, I lived on couches for a while. There was a guy from Tennessee who took me in. He was brilliant and funny and I thought we really hit it off. Then he suddenly announced one day that he was moving back home. He never wrote and that was that. The ancillary friends I met through him remained but he didn’t.

No matter what the contributing factors might have been, I came to the conclusion that whatever friendship I once had with that guy had now’ left the station.’ On one hand, it was sad. On the other, it was just life giving me a poke on the backside and reminding me that nothing and no one is perfect.

Some folks can be brutally honest in terms of their relationships. They separate family (with all those obligatory ties) from friends and acquaintances (where they get to decide whom they want to be associated with.) They pick and choose their friends based on connections, associations and tie-ins all for their own self-benefit and satisfaction. ‘It’s nothing personal,’ as my boss used to say, ‘it’s just business.’

Friendships and relationships can be by their very nature a very vapid and elusive bond to attain and hold on to. Fleeting friendships based on circumstance are easy to recognize. An MOS partnership in the Armed Forces evaporates as soon as discharge papers are served. That’s understood, accepted and welcomed for a return to civilian life. A close relationship in the classroom can wither away and die when outstate jobs or opportunities beckon. Neighbors and neighborhoods fade from memory after the moving van has arrived. It’s all part and parcel of the ebb and flow of normal life.

Photo Credit: Jerry Hoffman

But what about those friendships you thought were meant for greater things. Something special you wanted to hold on to but couldn’t…her fault or yours, it doesn’t matter anymore. The clichés are rampant when describing what happened or might have happened. ‘There were promises not met or kept.’ ‘We were moving along in life.’ ‘People change.’ ‘They/she just wasn’t that into you.’ And the one that best describes them all because it tells us nothing: ‘Things happen.’ Whatever once was had become vaporous and vague. Then like the morning mist wrapping itself around a tree trunk it slowly slipped away.

It seems to me that some folks go through life on autopilot. They never stop to question any-thing that life throws at them. Instead of designing their life as they would want it or like it or wish for it to be they simply accept what is lying there under the morning covers. I think that’s what happens to a lot of friendships. They’re taken for granted until those innocuous bonds that held it together have slowly unraveled and broken apart, leaving nothing but memories where a welcoming smile used to be.

A mental-meandering trip back in time usually reveals very little. So what happened to those folks? Did they change or did you? Whose expectations weren’t met? Was it your baggage or theirs? Did they move on or did you move on with your life and in the process leave behind what once was or might have been. Did they disappoint you or did you screw up and lose what might have been a wonderful friendship or relationship?

Two pals from grade school

The Barracks Boys

Marie, A wonderful confidant in that Danish laundry

My Roommate in Danmark who we all called ‘Animal.’

A Danish University student who wanted to get close

A potter from Amsterdam

A painter from Amsterdam

A pen pal from Lincolnshire, England

Susan

It’s been several lifetimes since I’ve seen any of these folks. I assume I never will again. So I wish for all of them health and happiness and good memories just as mine are. It’s the Great Go-Around and in this Circle of Life a few old friends will occasionally reappear after fifty years. I guess that’s why reconnecting with old friends is so special.

Like most mysteries of life, there are no easy answers…if any at all. What once was is no longer relevant and if that bothers you then the onus is on you to make it better the next time around.

As the saying goes: “To have a friend you must first be a friend.” They’re still out there…those wonderful folks who could be your friend. You just have to be generous in kindness and spirit.

I guess we (or perhaps just I) have to make the effort and accept the fact that we might be disappointed in the process.

Nevertheless, it’s still worth the effort.