Life is like water under a bridge when it comes to all the memories we accumulate in a lifetime. I re-connected with a childhood friend of my children on Facebook which also reunited me with his mother Chris too. Our kids met when they were in fifth grade, but life has a way of spinning people away from each other.
When I told my eldest son Jamie that I had found his childhood friend Marvin, he contacted him immediately. I arranged a dinner with my son and his wife and invited his friend Marvin to surprise him. Marvin and I met just before Jamie and his wife Julie got to the restaurant. I noticed them coming and Marvin got up to open the door for them. I watched my son look at this childhood friend and slowly his memory banks flooded with the realization that he was looking at his dearest childhood friend. It was pure serendipity!
They began flushing out all the memories that were stored in their brains and it was heavenly to watch this process happen. They told each other how much they loved and admired each other and I knew that they were truly brothers from another mother. It was delicious to hear them talk about all the things that they had done together. Simple things like buying a box of donuts and riding miles to Legg Lake to eat them and watch the world go by. They rode miles on their bikes together and talked about the times we all went to Seal Beach during the summers. It seems so idyllic to me now. Today, it seems like the world is spinning at Mach five, but the memories they made together happened in a much simpler time.
Kids used their imagination then and knew how to entertain themselves. Playing tag, kick the can, hide and seek, board games, using a yo-yo, playing marbles and having a bat and a ball was the order of the day. If you could have a Coke, a bag of chips, and some penny candy, you felt like you were the happiest kid on the planet! And, earning money to buy a Superman comic book was heaven on earth! Remember when kids made money to buy themselves a treat?
They could put bikes together using all kinds of parts, and they built ramps to jump their bikes on, and I have the movies to prove it! Evil Knievel was their hero and they imitated him all the time. They could fix or build almost anything and they still have that ability today. But the price of their toys began to increase as they grew up. Does Harley Davidson ring a bell?
I hope that our dinner together is the first of many happy gatherings in the future. All this proves my point, that love is the answer to everything. And showing it, sharing it and speaking of it is how you fill yourself up. Its soul food and good for anything that might ail you! After all – it’s your job to make you happy!
