My Friend Bobby

As I reminisce decades past, it's like a dream with lanes. One lane takes me down a strange path of years taken. Childhood years of sadness, empty spaces, broken pieces. Taken, lost childhood years never again to be recovered. Taken years that built partitions from all my friends. Another lane directs me into a curve of religiosity. This lane took me off-course, and I became short-sighted, self- righteous, shut-up, shut-in, and shut-out of the real world. While in this lane, I forgot how to connect, laugh, and play. There was yet a third lane that arrested me, exposed me to people with ideas graciously challenging my own. Fortunately, after some four years in a quiet cave, this lane proved to be an eye-opener that awakened and gently welcomed me to the real world. This beautiful real-world experience; this third lane encounter; compelled me 40 years later to reconnect with my old friend Bobby. We were close in our elementary years which enabled us to share a memory. It was a memory of a basketball game in which we played against a school that beat us, not just handedly but really badly. 40 years removed and 2000 miles apart, we laughed at the horrendous score that was 52 to 12. 081622PS