by Pa Rock
Old Fart
One of my old college roommates, Ranger Bob Randall, drove from his home in Springfield, Missouri, to visit me at The Roost today, a journey of 100 miles each way. Bob graduated from Southwest Missouri State University (now known as Missouri State University) in 1970, and I got my degree the following January. For twenty years we did not hear from one another, and then about thirty years ago we had a brief visit at my home in Noel, Missouri. And even though we have been in touch since we each retired, and Ranger Bob has written entries for this blog, today was the first time that we had actually seen each other since that short visit in Noel thirty years ago.
Bob spent most of his work career as a Ranger with the National Park Service.
And we had an exceptionally nice visit - which included Bob showing his skill by tying a couple of fishing flies - one of which used guinea feathers that he picked up off of the ground here at my little acerage. We also leafed through a couple of old college yearbooks and told stories about people we remembered, many of whom are now occupied on a full-time basis pushing up daisies. Then in the afternoon we phoned our mutual friend, Carla, in St. Louis, and had a long and interesting visit with her. I think that was the first time that Bob and Carla, who once ran on a ticket for President and Vice-President of the Student Body at SMSU, had visited since college.
Bob and Carla and I talked about the fact that it would no longer take a very big room to assemble all of our old college friends for a reunion!
And in my mind I kept hearing Simon and Garfunkel singing the title song from the "Bookends" album, a recording that came out while we were in college:
(I was standing on a step!)
Bookends
by Paul Simon
(Recorded by Simon and Garfunkel)
Old friends
Old friends
Sat on their park bench
Like bookends
A newspaper blown through the grass
Falls on the round toes
On the high shoes
Of the old friends
Old friends
Winter companions
The old men
Lost in their overcoats
Waiting for the sunset
The sounds of the city
Sifting through trees
Settle like dust
On the shoulders
Of the old friends
Can you imagine us
Years from today
Sharing a park bench quietly?
How terribly strange
To be seventy
Old friends
Memory brushes the same years
Silently sharing the same fear
Time it was,
And what a time it was
It was . . .
A time of innocence
A time of confidences
Long ago . . . it must be . . .
I have a photograph
Preserve your memories
They’re all that’s left you
3 comments:
Glad Bob made it to the Roost and Carla was dialed in.
Seems like only yesterday when Bob and Carla were running for SGA, wrestling with the Greek power structure on campus.
Elsewhere young men were being drafted and killed in a place called Viet Nam. National politics were impacting our little campus.
And Bob Holden was playing Cherish by the Association dreaming of his own run for SGA.
Independents and Greeks were meaner to each other than Young Democrats and Young Republicans. Holden struggled with conjugating verbs, as did many from his high school.
And the Dean of Students, Wyrick, was a good guy.
Memories, good friends, favorite teachers, summertime and the haunting question of will I see you in September paint a mural of some pretty good times; even with a nation at war, political upheaveal, and racial unrest. Now our children and their children are making their own memories in times not so different.
Great fun! Great visit! Why did we wait so long? Bookends is right.
Too bad we can't attach pictures here.
Just so nice! Happy for the two old schoolmates!
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