"So Long, Ike"

An old friend passes. 

And I’m eating pancakes.

Yesterday, I was informed that a man, once important to me, had recently died. 

We had been best friends when we were kids.

I last saw him four years ago, and he looked fine.  Then I heard he’d had surgery.  Then I heard he was gone.

Beyond that now precious reunion, save for a one-day reunion sometime in the 80’s, there was nothing for fifty or more years.

Remembering someone from the long ago past, it’s like, for me at least, you’re on some archeological dig, finding tiny fragments of memory, not enough to construct a whole person – there are thousands of lost pieces – but recognizable as him.

Sifting through those disparate fragments,

I see “blond.”

I see “wiry.”

I see “dryly funny.”

I see “pensively thoughtful.”

I see “caring.”

I see “kind.”

And then there’s this larger “personal artifact” –

A full-blown “Moment in Time.” 

Once, age in the “double-digits” though I am not sure which ones, we had the option of purchasing our own canoe paddles at camp, and I did.  With the explanatory underpinning now lost – did I ask him to do it, did he spontaneously insist, I do not recall.  But a few days later, individualizing the blade of my canoe paddle, he had painted the recognizable cartoon head of “Dennis the Menace.”   

Wherever that priceless memento is today, you have “painted friendship”, etched on a paddle.

Then, pondering this tribute, another meaningful fragment surfaced to mind, triggered, I imagine, by its prominent mention in yesterday’s post. 

We saw my favorite movie The Court Jester together. 

And this wonderful thing happened that day.   

(Note:  You could easily do this back then at the movies.  Today, unless you’re particularly tricky, you can’t.)

We file out at the end of the movie, emerging into the lobby.  Having mutually concurred The Court Jester was great, suddenly, without a word being said, we wheeled back to the theater, and we watched it again.

That’s all the memories I’ve got.

Accompanying this feeling, uneasy to process, which is this:

Two pals.

One, gone.

The other, still here. 

You know what I mean?  It feels weird.  Unfair.  And, of course, mortalistically scary.

I went down to the ocean this morning for guidance.  I was told he’s okay.  It helped a little, I guess.  But… you know.

We saw The Court Jester twice.

And now I’m the only one who remembers.