This is a story of thanks. Meant for a week during which being
thankful registers a little deeper. (Or at least we pay closer
attention to those for whom we’re grateful.) It’s a story of six old
teammates of mine: Gabby, Cheese, Frog, Tim, Mike, and Audie. Together
as Northfield Marauders, we played for Vermont’s 1985 Division III
state runner-up soccer team. And quite honestly, that’s where the
sports connection ends. Three months of a unified goal. (A time in
which each of us achieved a physical condition we can fantasize over
today.) But just as we survived an ass-kicking in that championship
game without much enduring pain, we’ve survived 24 years of comings,
goings, discoveries, and disappointments, and find ourselves on the
other side of 40 now. Friendships fully intact. And for that I’m
grateful.
Some background: Frog — we came up with nicknames that stuck
— is the superintendent of one of the finest golf courses in New
England. Cheese is a high-school teacher in Montpelier, and runs a
painting business on the side. Tim owns and manages an auto-repair shop
in our hometown of Northfield, Vermont. Mike is an airline pilot, and
Audie is a major in the Air Force, based in Guam. Gabby calls himself a
“lifestyle educator.” Best we can tell, he advises people with serious
health concerns — obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes —
on ways to achieve healthier lives before relying entirely on
pharmaceuticals to change their bodies’ chemistry. A noble enterprise
if you ask me.
With Cheesey motivating and Frog making arrangements near his
parents’ new home in Myrtle Beach, we put together — and actually
executed — a plan to gather for a weekend in October to
collectively celebrate turning 40 this year. No wives allowed, no
children. And no excuses … not even living on an island in the middle
of nowhere. While boys will be boys, and men should behave like men,
there are times in life — stages, I guess — when men acting
like boys is healthy. And for three days on the coast of South
Carolina, we acted like boys.
The combination of sunshine, golf, cold beer, and midget wrestling
will go a long way toward extending one’s life. Despite an ailing back
that limited me to “designated putter” duties at Indigo Creek Golf
Club, the steady, prolonged laughter of our gathering was unmatched in
my adult life. And I say that with as happy a marriage — and the
two most rewarding, delightful daughters — a man can claim. This
was just prolonged, steady laughter … of a different kind.
Our oldest friends, you see, serve as soul mechanics. (Tim will
appreciate this.) We tend to adjust priorities as we age, hopefully
intelligently. Influences — like, say, a wife and children
— enter our lives that make the days, weeks, and months less
about who we are or who we were, and more about how we can best
contribute to a larger cause. And this a good adjustment, a nice shift
of gears (again for you, Tim) in the human condition. But old friends
provide a realignment for the soul. In the right setting (a beach will
always do) and with enough time (a long weekend will suffice), friends
from our formative years remind us that we are, fundamentally, products
of our youth. Take yourself too seriously at age 40, and a friend from
your 17th year will quickly have you back on track. You may have 200
airmen under your command, but not one of them knows the difference
your van made in high school. We know, Audie.
Among the memories I’ll carry from Myrtle Beach — beyond the
tallest pair of boots I’ve ever seen — is the remarkable
consistency in happiness among seven men who have traveled in so many
different directions. Each of us is happily married, six of us the
parents of healthy children, with Gabby’s wife due in February. I’m not
sure what the odds are of such a confluence, particularly among a group
from a town so very small. I’ve lived near (and worked with) people for
much of the 22 years since I left Northfield for college who don’t know
me the way these six men do, distance be damned. We keep making
friends, if we’re lucky, throughout adulthood. But the older you get,
the harder it is to find a good soul mechanic.
I’m eternally grateful for mine.
