I am not sure why, but I find myself thinking about friends from my past today. Not that there is a lot mind you, still; there is enough for some memories to surface.
I grew up on Chena Hot Springs Rd. in Fairbanks, Alakska. Although our area was remote, there was group of friends that tend to run together. My house was located off of Melan Dr. N. To the east of was the home of our friend Wendy Treakle. Just past her where Kayla Root lived with her family.
Across from the Root household was Marc Stephens. If you continued down the networking of dirt roads, you would eventually run in to the home of Harold McGrogan and then further Chris Moss.
Across Chena Hot Springs Rd. was were Mike Eagan lived. Further down the road was the home of Dawn Burchard and her brothers Junior and Cleve.
We were a crew, so to speak. As luck would have it -- or should I say the power of social networking -- I have been able to contact most of the folks from my Chena Hot Springs days. But Mike remains missing. As does Marc.
It is my understanding that Marc is no longer a part of this world. Marc fell in with a bad crowd and was in out of juvenile facilities. And was gunned down in Anchorage, according to the rumors I have been told. I have no clue if this is true or not. I have tried to do some looking for Marc, but I have found nothing.
Nor have I been able to contact Mike. Mike left the Chena Hot Springs area when I was still in high school. He returned a couple years later and, for some reason, I seem to remember he was married. But that was several years ago and sometimes the fogs settle on my brain.
Mike was a very good friend of my brother and I. Most summers were spent with him either at our house or us at his. We did a lot together. Drank, smoked, hunted and pretty much anything else three teen-aged boys can think of to do.
Aside from them, I also find myself remembering my good friend David Harrison. David never lived on Chena Hot Springs. Instead, he and I met on Fort Wainwright -- the Army base there in Fairbanks -- where our fathers were stationed.
David's dad was a captain so he lived on the other side of Wainwright. Still, we became close friends and again, spend lots of time at each other's homes. David and I read a lot of the same books, were both in to science fiction, and loved playing Axis and Allies together.
I wish I could get in touch with some of these folks. Or, find out if the rumors I have heard are true.
Even with social networking I feel I don't keep as much in touch with good friends who are far away as I wish I did. It is so easy for us to read each other's status updates and feel satisfied in knowing what's up with one another.
ReplyDeleteBut I have been missing friends lately, missing the part of me I am when I am with them. And deeply missing friends from our time together in Fairbanks. I especially miss esoteric conversations over coffee, not the inane chit-chat of work and weather and the obligatory questions on family and what is so-and-so up to and I can't believe how fast they're growing. I miss talking about the nature of existence. I miss learning about obscure interests and knowledge I've never thought to examine on my own. And I miss the moments when we discover that the person across the table is more like our self, in a deep-down sort of way, than we ever could have imagined.
Sometimes I wonder if it's not just nostalgia for a time in my life when my curiosity about the world was insatiable and hadn't so many responsibilities that I could indulge in such experience.
But then I come across something like this. An old friend writing, in more than 140 characters, about some of the same themes I am questioning myself. It is a fulfilling feeling. I can't steal your ice cubes to cool my coffee right now, but it is that same moment of discovery, about you, about me and about whatever it is that connects us through time and space.
Thank-you, Pat. I needed this.
Much love, Talia