A Friend Has Died

I have learned that a close friend of mine has died.  How do you go on when one who has been with you for years and years suddenly and without warning just up and expires?  How can you live life when the one who gets you going just is not there any more?

You are always left wondering why.  How did it happen?  I don’t think age was an issue.  Twenty-seven can hardly be considered old in anyone’s book.  It is just wrong to be taken so early.  Here one minute and gone the next! How fleeting is life!  All the old, stale, trite, and hackneyed phrases come to mind.  Just do not say to me, “It was all for the best” or “At least there is no more suffering.”  How could it be for the best?  And what in the hell do you know about suffering anyway?

You say, “Well, you still have the memories. No one can take those away.”  Ok.  I’ll concede that one.  I remember the first day we met.  Late 70’s.  Those were the days.  Disco.  Donna Summer. Wild Cherry. Yeah, Play That Funky Music White Boy.  I always associate events with music, with the song flava of the moment.  We connected over Boston.  It was “More Than a Feeling” that sealed the relationship.  Or was it “Foreplay/Long Time?”  Ahh, memory, it’s good when you have it.  Too bad some things are fading.

I think about the times together.  How about those parties back in Salem?  We would invite it seems like the whole church up to the house and have people sleeping all over the place – in the bedrooms, yes, but also in the living room, the dining room, and even in the kitchen.  If they didn’t fit there, they slept in their cars.  But before sleep – what little there was of it – it was blast time.  

Everyone assembled on the car port for an evening of “Manuel music” played absolutely full blast.  You know in your heart that the only way to really listen to music is to experience the feeling of the sound waves pulsating over your entire body.  Yeah, the neighbors really appreciated that.  Lynyrd Skynyrd was always there for the Southern National Anthem, “Freebird.”  I get chills when I think about that song to this day.  Puts a little starch in the spine; a little life in the step.  Of course, then, it was an evening of contorting the body for the whole song – not the radio version.  What a workout!  And no, the evening was not complete without the aforementioned Wild Cherry composition.   Have you ever seen a woofer get excited when “Play That Funky Music” starts?  If the woofer is trembling, then you know the human form has to follow suit.  

We did have morals.  We weren’t high!  If we had an ordained person present, we would always play Steely Dan’s “Deacon Blues” or maybe just for the message, a cut like “Gotta Serve Somebody” from Bob Dylan’s religious album, Slow Train Coming.  You need to listen to that album sometimes; good stuff, more for chilling than cavorting.   But I digress.  

We were together through the good times and through the hard times.  When I came home from a day of counseling at dear old Tamassee-Salem High, we would get together in the living room where I would get my own therapy – the sonic boom variety.  Getting smashed with sounds from Kansas, Foreigner, the Doobies, or KC was a guaranteed means of clearing the mind and obliterating all troubles.  And who else would gladly listen as I belted out the Eagles Greatest Hits or Harry Chapin Live?  I won’t even talk about sharing moments listening to Donna Summer’s adults-only and breathy “Love to Love You Baby” - all 16 minutes and 50 seconds of it.  Better stop thinking about that.  Time to move on…

Good memories continued as the years passed.  During the Gerald Weston years, we shared the stage DeeJaying dances and sock hops.  James Brown’s “I Feel Good” had to be our theme song.  We had a great time getting the crowd into two lines and seeing everyone throw caution to the wind doing their own “danse interpretative moves.”

But in recent years, the relationship had changed as many relationships do.  We just didn’t have the chance to get together as much.  It’s not that we didn’t enjoy each other’s company.  Life’s circumstances changed.  There just was not the time.  At times like this, you always look back with regret and wonder what might have been.  Could we not have just touched base for a few minutes every day?  Really, why not?

I know in time the sadness will cease, but the memories will remain.  So with this eulogy, I bid you adieu my old friend of so many years.  My Kenwood KR-6600 stereo receiver.