Mountain Shadows......

Rip Van Winkle purposely wandered off to the Catskill Mountains to escape his nagging wife. Rip could very well have been Shiela, or Suzie, or Katie, escaping a male chauvinist piggy. He drank. Piddled. Slept. Returned - 20 years later. Much had changed.

As I do damn near every morning - I think and think and think (too much) on what to write about. As light finally crept thru the window shades, it dawned on me. Please laugh, it's probably the best you're gonna get here.

Life is Van Winkle.

Oh there are the lucky ones, GHWB and Barbara, 73 years married. The Smiths and the Joneses, next door neighbors fitty years. The dudes, dudettes that worked together, griped, groaned, toiled, laughed, struggled, shone, retired, that meet up at the Piggly Wiggly every Sunday since.

Mates. Siblings. Best buds. Whether it be a text. A phone call. A visit. An email. Whatever, there is perty much constant touch over the years. That's special - but it's also rare.

Yesterday, 15 or so buddies from college, fraternity brothers (or, "Alligater snap snap" buddies as one of my wonderful friends that never wanted to, never did join a fraternity referred us to..ie, Polo shirts) met up as we've been trying to do monthly. Monthly yes, but after 40+ years, mebbbe weakly. On this occasion, three popped in that I/we hadn't seen in YEARS.

We, brothers, back in that day - were (proud) hellions. Bridging our future but lost in one heck of a lotta fun. That ain't the point though - even though, looking back, it was one of the most wonderful eras of my own, personal life.

It's that, sometimes years go by. It may be a grocery store meetup. You might be two stools down at the barber shop. Twelve rows behind at a play. Section 308 at Kauffman Stadium. Ya just never know when (or if) you are ever gonna run into folks from yesteryear.

Meteors. Incandescent. Gone.

I write too much. Fortunately, I talk hella less. I was, and usually am, content, when in person, to be the one "thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt." In fact, as the lunch hour ended and the poor bastards that are still working had to rise up, say goodbyes - we rearranged chairs so we could all be close, hear, converse. "Here," I pointed for a buddy to take my chair closest to the crowd as I moved down one in the other direction, "you sit here, I don't talk very much!"

I LOVED listening to the stories. I loved hearing of kids, grandkids, things that have transpired in their lives over the years.. even better, retold stories from hellion days.

Within this beautiful one and one-half hour meet up - a "townie" (ie, a Liberty person, not a fraternity brother), came up to me and said "Did you hear about _____?" I had. A buddy of ours struggles to survive a car wreck. I then asked my townie brother "Did you know ____ passed yesterday?" "No, I heard he was bad." And sadly, we spoke of another friend that's in advanced hospice.

Meteors. Incandescent. Gone.

Sadly, that's life. Sometimes us meteors meet up while we're still orbiting. It's a grand thing. Sometimes we fall to earth, and much later it's learned the light has gone out.

One of the stories shared was when three of us, officers in the fraternity, traveled by car to Del Webb's Mountain Shadows Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona.. young punks.. no idea how lucky we were to be able to do that... and we attended a cocktail hour, and were served mimosas, poolside, by Playboy Bunnies. Uh huh, you read that right. I laughed as it was recalled to me - then I remembered one of the three's meteor had burned out.

I've noticed, with each decade I/we enter, the greater the frequency of meteor showers.

Our fraternity, the Beta Xi Chapter of Sigma Nu, William Jewell College - is now defunct on campus. Seems some reasonably recent hellions behaved not half as bad as we hellions did from back in the day, standards/morals much stricter - they wiped us off the face of the campus.

For sure, thank God for Heaven.

In the meantime, catchup with an orbiting meteor from back in the day {Loved one, schoolmate, neighborhood bud, coworker, yada) - before we're all wiped off the face of the Earth.

Hi Rickety...

Love, Victurd