In response to something I wrote, a friend wrote:

“An old Jewish belief is that the dead live as long as they are remembered…so remembering those we loved and who loved us recapitulates our history…and so telling the stories and remembering the faces is eternity for all of us. As I grow older, stories mean more and more to me, and I wonder if someone in the future will be telling my stories around the campfire.”

I’m thinking how much I love this lunk of a guy, and so, in the future of the next day getting all sentimental about our long distance friendship and getting a tear in my eye  and thinking I was writing something real buddy, buddy-like, I wrote, “I’ll tell stories about you and you can tell stories about me as we sit together around the campfire on the beach.”

He lives in San Antonio, Texas and I live along the shores of Lake Michigan.  It’s March.

So right away he wrote,  “Are you nuts?  It’s freezing cold up there.”

I, forgetting this was supposed to be a conversation about when we were dead just like my San Antonio buddy forgot, wrote,  “Well, with that kind of an attitude, it will be a cold day in hell before I sit around a campfire with you.”

I watched the weather report and it was going to be a really cold day and so I wrote, “I’m catching a flight down. Start gathering the wood.”

And we aren’t even dead yet but our memories are getting short and we’d better make hay while the sun shines at least in San Antonio, Texas in March which it almost never does in Michigan along the shores of the lake.

And so I wrote right away asking him to float me a loan for the ticket.

And all of a sudden he can’t even find the words to respond. I’m thinking he’s getting all sentimental and choking back the tears.

It’s now the middle of April and I still haven’t heard back from him.  That’s how choked up he is.

And that’s friendship, I guess. I love this guy.

Madison Avenue market psychologists,

like a mountain lion, a grizzly or a

Diamondback rattler knows its territory,

know what commercials to play on

just the right channels at just the right

time to generate revenues and maximize

profits for the companies that pay them,

like lobbyists in Washington DC, oh so

well. Cialis’ two old-timey claw-foot tubs

appropriate for two old-timey folks are

placed between fairways and next to greens

and often close to the holes on the Golf

channel Friday, Saturday and always on

Sunday with the biggest audience as Tiger

and Phil walk past and tip their caps to the

naked bodies in the tubs and as an aside,

why are the naked bodies in separate tubs

in an ad for erectile dysfunction assuming the

dysfunction got functional? Anyway, on

the Retro channel, lawyers offer the possibility

of a big payday for sufferers of bad hip

replacements, of unmeshed uterine meshes,

for those who ingested questionable pharma-

ceuticals which may have led to cervical and

bladder cancer and mental or other physical

disabilities or who may be way in arrears on

their income taxes and insurance companies

offer million dollar term life insurance policies

for a song and banks celebrate the glories of

reverse mortgages which if left to their logical

conclusions would leave the house in the hands

of the bank at which time some other company

would offer a way out of foreclosure all seen

over and over and over night and day on the

channel where the viewers just want to watch

reruns of “The Naked City,” “Route 66,” and

“Mayberry R.F.D.,” because they can escape

from the present and live again and again and

again in that simpler day and time all the time

in the Time Machine named Retro TV.

Is that what Madison Avenue knows in order to

help the hapless and helpless old timers looking

for a break from or maybe belated pay-dirt for all

the days’ woes or is it just another target group

whose money they seek to take? At which point

Madison Avenue, Mountain Lions, Grizzlies,

Diamondback rattlers, the pharmaceutical and

insurance companies, lawyers, banks, the Naked

City detectives, and Buz and Tod and later Linc

in their Corvette, Andy, Opie and Barney whistling

on their way to the fishing hole all looked at each

other quizzically and we stared blankly at them

while Rod Serling smiled into the camera, raised

his big, black eyebrows, then frowned and announced,

“Welcome to the twilight zone” as a pedestrian

walked past the house and saw the blue light

emanating from the big, bay window just as the

police car pulled up and told the curfew violator

to get in the car.

Friendships are fickle

The old man concluded.

It put him in a pickle

About his being excluded.

One Fourth of July

His presence was included;

The next he would fly

To banished and excluded.

To the Derby party always

He brought passable bourbon

Then his favor went sideways

And his presence a burden.

So now on the Fourth

And every Derby Day

He sits in his house

Sipping the bourbon away.

Friendships are fickle

The old man concluded,

But no longer in a pickle,

No longer deluded.

He looked at his wife

And gave her a wink.

The shortness of life

Gave him pause to think.

The love of a good woman

And a few true friends

Are the way an old man

With a sad heart mends.

In grades one through four he didn’t have a clue.

By the grace of God he barely made it through.

And then his family moved from city to burb

Where his fifth grade teacher sought to curb

The new phenomenon of social promotion

By calling resolutely for a full grade demotion.

The hapless boy’s father had apoplexy

At the thought of the boy’s reverse destiny

And begged and pleaded with the cross-armed matron

To give the kid a chance and escape the clutches of Satan

In what would surely be the hell of a repeated grade.

So the teacher would yield only if progress were made.

She insisted that dad take heart and do his parental part

For the kid to have a brand spanking new academic start.

Unbeknownst to the kid, they made a devilish pact

To keep the errant child fastened to the right track

And so, as a matter now of history, they gave that

Boy a table and chair where he sat and studied and sat

Until with distinction he earned his doctorate,

And by then he knew he owed it all to Mrs. Allen

Who gave him hell but paved the way to academic heaven.

I know you use Sally as your nom de plume,

but I know you, Sally Sue, and always will,

the formerly impoverished, little, fundamentalist

girl from rural wherever probably with roots going

back to ever backward in your own denial of what

was good back there. We’re all trying to escape our roots

and then finally find the peace in finding them again

(and it’s as if seeing it again but for the first time Eliot wrote).

You too, Sally Sue? Did you ever like yourself or are all your

well publicized good deeds for the less fortunate,

ironically, a way to further separate you from those roots?

Trying to dismiss and erase what was in the marrow

of your bones, you hitched your wagon resolutely

to what you saw as a rising star and you have ridden

that star ever since while posturing for the poor

from your now elitist perch. It is so much easier to

see if you are looking down. Are you looking

for yourself down there? Look closely, Sally Sue. It’s

you and she’s looking back at you. Carl Sandburg

once wrote that the ugliest word in the English language

is “exclusive,” and there are those who would add

“dismissive,” and I have seen such dismissiveness

brutally dismiss innocence. Those are two words I think

of when I think of you, formerly impoverished, little, fund-

amentalist girl, Sally Sue — exclusive and dismissive.

Those are strange, poets would say ugly, words

upon which to build a legacy and describe a lifetime

of achievements regardless what the paper

may praise.  You wish to be “exclusive” and that

you surely are and always have been “dismissive.”

How sad, how profoundly sad….

And now as your seemingly false altruism justifiably

fades, you face the cruel reality of  insignificance

from which you have sought so hard to escape.

But that insignificance has only been in the mirror

of your own mind as the Lloyd Weber words ring,

“Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” and your Betty Davis

eyes and Joan Crawford smirk fade from the big

screen of life as we all eventually, graciously or

defiantly, exit stage left.

He wandered through his neighborhood one day

shortly after he was home to stay

from his travels way out west and south

last December when he really wanted out

of the cold and snow and bone-chilling damp

to a place of warmth where he could camp

safe under the stars with scorpions and rattlesnakes

who, unlike his neighbors with all their hates,

only wanted to be left to their own devices.

So here he was back inhaling spring’s delicious spices

wondering when those whose property had been inherited

would strike out with venom and proudly appeal to a reptile’s

“Territorial Imperative.”

There was something in him

that was out of control – his

arm.  He had been on his way –

Little League All Star, Kiwanis

All Star. His dad had worked

with him, hour after hour, on

his hitting, fielding and throwing

and then his dad just up and died.

Then in high school, he still hit

and fielded skillfully, but he could

no longer throw the ball straight

from left field, center field or

right. They put him on first base

where they thought he would

do the least damage and when

he couldn’t throw the ball from

first to home anymore, the coach,

back in the day, said the politically

incorrect thing: “Just roll it in,

girly.” For the next several years

he kept his life together, more

or less, and then he saw Steve

Sax, second baseman for the

Los Angeles Dodgers and

premier professional baseball

player, lose his throwing arm

and Steve couldn’t throw the

ball from second to first and

he wondered what Steve

was going through and he

thought that if it could happen

to such a great player as Steve,

it could happen to him, for

whatever reason  and he took

comfort in Steve’s misery and

he figured out that his arm went

crazy after his dad died and that

his arm was still out in left field

and would ever and always be

there and while he felt really bad

for Steve Sax, he gave thanks for

his wild left arm, the arm

coaches thought would be his ticket

to the big leagues, the arm that

went crazy after his dad died

— the arm that took and absorbed

all the grief and let him find his

way out of left field and

into life.

Watching old movies, he asked

His wife, Aren’t all those actors

Now dead? And then he recalled

That all the actors from all the

Old films he watches are dead

And his mother and father are

Dead and his first wife is dead

And the husband of his wife

Died on April 1 twenty years

Before and so April Fool’s

Jokes aren’t particularly funny

Anymore. And she knows that

In the future they still won’t

Be very funny. She knows that

About the future and she

Imagines being  in the future

Listening to an April Fool’s joke

And thinking instead about her

Dead husband who lives in the

Moment. Some say that the

Past, the present and the future

Are all occurring at the same

Time and for two hours the

Old actors are alive while he

Sips his wine and when

He thinks about them, his

Parents are alive and in his

Dreams his late wife lives and

Then he thinks that one day his

Children will think about him when

He is dead and he will come to life

In his past and their present and

That will be in the future maybe and

We all know we are going to

Die, but the only ones who really

Know the immediate future are

Those who have decided on

Suicide. What they don’t  know

Is the aching hole in the

Hearts of those who live

On into a frightening, unknown

Future.

She says she is outraged by

the false accusations of another

and he says, You’re on your

own, and then all the positive

responses pour in and when it

comes to possible future

declarations of innocence

and setting the record straight,

he says, Count me in.

I’m behind you 1000%.

Now, that’s courage.

He’d come home from school

         Each day, turn on the T.V.

And watch Mr. Lucky, the original

         With Cary Grant and later

The series with Craig Stevens, and

         The Thin Man with Myrna Loy

And William Powell and then the

         Three Stooges – Larry, Curly and

Moe and for sure Laurel and Hardy

         And of course Abbot and Costello

“Slowly I turn, step by step, closer and

         Closer….” And then after many

More years in school and a vocation and

         Twenty-six thousand miles jogging

The equivalent of around the world at the

         Equator plus a thousand, now in

The evening he sits with his feet up and

         Watches Turner Classic Movies and

Remembers how good movies used

         To be.  He laughs as if for the

First time as he wanders off to

         Bed and thinks, The more things

Change, the more they remain the same.

         And he’s glad for it and he thinks

About time curving back on itself

         And the past, present and future

Accompany him down the stairs

And under the covers.