Both Sides Now

Last week I was pleasantly surprised when I picked up my phone at my call center and I heard a familiar voice—I was not sure just exactly but I knew I knew them. In a second or two the caller identified himself as John C, my best friend from childhood. John and his older brother Tom were town to ski “the greatest snow on earth”. They had warned me they were going to come to Salt Lake to ski but I did not take their statement seriously. John has a child who now lives in the Sugar House area so the brothers have a place to crash when they come to town—but they called me and wanted to do something...with me, that very afternoon.

Since I work downtown I have any number of places to choose from for a meal suggestion but my mind went black I was so excited. I quickly did a couple of mental slaps in the face to focus and defaulted to Applebees at the downtown mall. I was to meet them at the front of the mall at 11:30 and we would take it from there. I of course had calls right up to the meeting time so I was late meeting them but I was glad to see the two brothers who had totally surprised me a decade earlier when they walked into my dads funereal service. They looked great, we did that awkward hand shake dance finally settling for the hug—a hand shake being too formal for what we had been through as children.

The brothers first came into my life (or I theirs) when I was six, We had just moved to a small farm in S.E. Boise and Jon and his brother were the only other kids in our area—My older brother, Ross and I came as a set, so we fit right in with John and Tom, even though Ross was a bit older then the rest of us he really did not have anyone else to hang with, with the ease and access of John or his brother. So by default John be came my best friend, he must be I use his name as the security name, you know when the computer asks, “Who was you best childhood friend?” Our families never did anything together we just were always together for that short span of life called childhood—we started drifting apart in the 7^th grade the great economic separator of kids. Then they both got real jobs—more financial separation and the I had the accident and that was that.

Now, as adults, we are kind of drifting back, Tom has acquired a disability which may or may not surpass mine as far as severity goes. They are both retired and have the ability to enjoy life a bit. We love to talk about the old days and talk about those folk we used to know and what are they doing now.I think we tend to tell tales about family members,especially if we happen to share the same history. We dance round the edges just barely talking about death, our ages and maybe even our deaths as inevitable. These two are concrete and a comfortable validity of my life past and present.

So, the guys called ME, they really did, will they call again next time their in town I don't know but maybe they did once why not again?