The other day, we were sitting in the Delta Sky Club Lounge at JFK, the least exclusive club in the world where you almost have to try not to gain admission since everyone else seems to get in, when I realized that a first class domestic ticket doesn’t get you into the joint or any other Delta lounge at JFK. How did that happen? I’m not a fan of airline lounges anyway. They are always too far from my gate and the food buffet never seems to have anything I really like and when there is something that I might like, I usually find the taste isn’t quite what I was expecting. I would rather sit out in the general boarding gate area and these days they are offering up lots of low and high desks along with soft seating and regular chairs as options. My egalitarian outlook likes me to be out in the general population unless the crowds are so great that there is standing room only…in which case give me an exclusive club chair, by all means. Kim kinda likes the lounges. Anyway, we had just arrived to the lounge and I got a call from my old pal Michael. Michael is a Welsh boyo who I befriended when we worked together almost forty years ago. We particularly bonded during a trip to the Amazon in 1989 and then toiled away, side-by-side in Canada for a few years before I shipped back to NYC and handed him the reigns of the Canadian bank I was shepherding. We got so close that I became godfather to his younger daughter and then he became godfather to my younger son. I think it’s fair to say that we have a strong and deep friendship and can have more laughs over old times and tall tales than you can shake a stick at. Michael is a highly intelligent guy, but his tough Welsh roots make him irreverent in the extreme. Political correctness has never been his long suit, but he’s one of those people who are forgiven their faux pas because he is so much fun and actually far more sophisticated than people realize (he speaks fluent French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian and knows more about fine wines than most oenophiles and more about etymology than an Ivy Leaguer).
Unfortunately, I ran afoul of some members of his family about 18 months ago after I wrote a story about a family destination wedding we attended in Tuscany. The circumstances aren’t important, though I will plead a degree of innocence, but I know by now that if you write, you will offend. No matter how careful you are or how much you stay away from writing about people with any mal-intent, you will get nailed for writing or even not writing. What that incident caused, despite Michael telling me that none of it was my fault (a bit of an exaggeration since it’s hard to deny that I wrote the offending piece), was that we haven’t seen each other since then and we haven’t even spoken on the phone. We both have very busy lives, but even for us, that was a long time in between contact. So when I picked up the phone at the Delta lounge, I was mildly and pleasantly surprised that it was Michael calling. We had a long and familiar chat that started with my sheepishness over the story incident and his denial that it was a factor, but that was quickly put behind us. When a call like that comes in unexpectedly, one’s first reaction is that it must have been prompted by something. The first thought is that someone died.
No one died…well, actually that’s not entirely true. Michael and I are part of a group of people who worked together for a bank that ceased to exist 27 years ago. They call themselves Legends, and since Michael and I are younger than most of them (Michael is a half dozen years younger than me), they are slowly, but surely, all dying off. We just had another announced death in the group last week. The group used to gather for dinners in NYC, but now seems relegated to email messages…mostly about who died most recently.
This weekend, Kim and I are readying our Christmas card list and Kim asked me to go over the addresses since we have the card company pre-address the envelopes from a spreadsheet to save ourselves the trouble. We still personalize the cards somewhat, but its all more of a ritual and right of ongoing passage than anything else at this point in life. We have not gone the route of either the email card or, for that matter, the full-blown Christmas letter, but we do still like to send an old-school photo card that reminds people that we’re still kicking and active. Hand addressed envelopes seem almost Victorian, but email cards seem too Silicon Valley. Christmas letters are too self-indulgent (says the man who writes a daily 1,300 word story with rambling memories) and cards with only a pre-printed “Happy Holidays” and no wet ink seems distant to the point of why bother. As I was reviewing the addresses, I chose to call several old friends to verify some aspect of their address. It’s a nice and easy to explain reason for a catch-up call and I like the feeling that I’m just calling to say hello. It seems genuine and I actually do do that once in while, even without a Christmas card list task at hand.
Today I called an old college friend who I last saw six months ago. During the last two years of school we were as close as we could be because she was married to my best friend. Both her marriage and my friend are distant memories. Life has moved on for both of us in many ways, but we are still dear friends and we do try to stay in touch. When I called she did not answer and her mailbox was full, so I figured I would just try her later. A little while later she called with concern in her voice. She immediately asked, “Is everything OK?” That question caught me a little flat-footed, but I said it was. She said, “It’s just that I saw you called…”. I asked, quite innocently (but not without some sense of humor), “Was I not supposed to call?” She explained that she was out at an art fair and I said we could talk later. I then just wished her well on the upcoming election on Tuesday, since she is a committed liberal like me. She then explained that she has a growing list of friends and family that are getting dementia or some health problem and so she is suspicious of incoming unexpected calls. Kim keeps telling me I should text people rather than surprise them with a call. This time that advice sort of hits home. I told my friend that we were all well in this household, whereupon she ended the call by telling me that she loved me. I told her I loved her too. Then the call ended. It was a poignant moment for us both. We had been fast friends 55 years ago and we are still fast friends even though we each have very separate lives. And no one died.