Poles and Lines

Next to the tracks:



Yes, I'm sure you've noticed that this telegraph pole in the foreground is the very same one featured the other day. I hope you like these photos, since shot another roll in black and white on the SWC which I've yet to develop. It's the least I can do to show respect to the camera and the film to post a few of the pictures I took. I don't know how that last sentence makes any sense at all.

The four of us stood in the church parking lot, one of us taking a much needed break from hearing the repeated sincerities from well-wishers, which only wear one down even further It was the first time the four of us had been in the same place at the same time in nine years. We've known each other collectively for over 20 years, and some of the individual, non-related connections extend 35 years into the past and longer. But there we stood in our Sunday bests like no time had passed at all, even if our faces were more wrinkled, and our hair more gray — those of us that still have hair, that is.

We reflected on happier and stranger times — times we didn't know were strange as they were happening. We just accepted them as normal. And here we were all these years later each on his own path trying to make it as best we can in the little worlds we've carved out. It's a shame that it sometimes has to take a tragedy to gather people together that have never stopped loving each other.

I know what I'm saying isn't exactly groundbreaking or original. I think it was explored in that 80s movie where Kevin Costner played the corpse, or that more recent Adam Sandler movie whose name I actually do remember (oh yeah, The Big Chill) but won't drag down this blog (if that's even possible) by mentioning it here. But it don't make it not true.

We're hoping to get together again sometime in the next few weeks, while we're still all in the tri-state area. There's talk of a barbecue, far from starched shirts and complimentary post-funerary lemonade. Just to sit on a deck with your feet up on the railing, a 16oz cup of Coke in your hand, the aroma of cooking meat filling the air, and having absolutely no rush to be anywhere except in the company of others you hold so dear.

We won't be there because we want to, but because we have to.