I heard from an old friend yesterday. It seems she stumbled upon this collection of spelling and grammar errors while deleting emails. A kinda quirky way to find me but I'm used to "quirky" in all things related to her.
Her personalized car license plate read "SQUIRLY" or something very close to that. It described her to a tee. Years and years ago I moved into an apartment complex and became close friends with her and a couple of guys she hung out with. This was before Seinfeld, way before, but the interactions of the characters on that show reminds me a lot of our little circle. We even had a "Newman" who lived in the same complex. The main four culprits, lets call them Terri, Mike, Chris and Forrest (that's really me!) were the ring leaders of a group of people that numbered off and on about ten.
We partied together for only seven or eight months but it was enough to become fast friends. Although three decades have come and gone since that glorious spring, summer and fall, Terri, Chris and I keep pretty close tabs on each other. Every now and again Mike will check in but he mostly just includes us on a long list of people that suffer through one after another joke that gets passed around the Internet. I seldom find these even remotely cute and often just hit the delete button when I get them it the mail. When the mail is from him, I keep hoping he's really saying hi and check it out. Usually I'm disappointed.
My body was the oldest by about ten earth years but mentally we were in the same place. Young, unattached, smart and carefree. No one was looking for anything - we just were. We'd barbecue on the postage stamp lawn in front of my place, watch TV at Chris's and Terri's and stay away from Mike's. His unit faced away from the pool so there never was any action we could disrupt if we gathered there - and boy did we disrupt the action around that pool. We were the action, by golly, and if anything was happening it was our gig! And ya know what? We were just enough fun to pull it off. People wanted to join our gig and would stop theirs to do so.
We spent hours outside trying to figure out where we were headed, how we'd get there and just how many flavors of ice cream there were in the universe. Halloween belonged to us. We managed to sneak booze into the movie to watch bicycles fly across the moon. We would spontaneously burst into a full length version of "Maria" in restaurants filled with the 2:30 AM crowd. There was a little booze and just a tiny bit of jail time - don't worry guys, I'll never mention names - but it was all in the name of too much fun. Mike and I even managed to kidnap a girl from the neighborhood 7-11 one night. I tossed her over my shoulder and he held the door. We were crazy enough to get away with it. After she paid the ransom of eating my 3:00AM chili she was released. That happened just before a night that Mike got booted from a nightclub. Chris and I busted a gut as he demonstrated to us he was mad enough and smart enough to shut the whole place down on a busy Saturday night without having to show up in front of a judge later.
But, all things come to an end and so did that happy time. Chris bought a house and moved out. Mike lost his job and moved out. A nasty divorce finally cost me my business and I left town. Terri moved away. And our very own Newman? He junked up Chris' garage by parking his tiny, cheap sailboat in it. Don't quote me on this one, but I think Chris set it on fire. He threatened to do so several times. We lost track of him more than twenty-five years ago. That's what happens to apartment dwellers. One day here, next day who knows.
Here's a quote from the email I received yesterday, in her own hand. "Sometimes when I read [your blog] I feel as if I am sitting on the grass of our apartment complex, beer in hand, with the sun shining on our faces and laughing until we hurt as we talked endlessly about life, and sharing our experiences."
Shared memories really do span a lifetime. And yes, Terri, I'm still the same guy. Can't seem to grow up - wouldn't want to if I could..
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