There He Was, Materialized

 

An old friend.  A wonderful old friend who I haven’t seen in years.  So familiar.  There he was, materialized last night and suddenly I could go nearly anywhere with a conversation.  I knew how to make him laugh.  He knew what topics would be of interest to me.  I knew we could talk about books and travel and all our old friends. 

 

We took a walk, early in the morning after I’d finished my history book, “Search for the Cid” which had an anticlimactic ending, over in Valencia, the city he’d taken over for a while. My chum had slept well and was fine for now with a coffee, black.  I wanted to show him every tree in our yard but contented myself with pointing out a few favorites.  When we last met, a decade or two ago, I wouldn’t have been able to name any of them. 

After a walk down to the view of the Gunks and the clouds and the cows, we drove over down beyond Mohonk towards High Falls.  The Egg’s Nest is wonderful restaurant.  They have dishes like psychedelic nachos but once again, this time on a Saturday morning when they openly advertised that they’d be open on the placard outside the restaurant, we found them closed as we parked in the empty lot.  And, not for the first time we meandered over, across the road the Kitchenette which was open.  The quiet young waitress served me up a lobster omelet, and biscuits.  We sat talking long after we finished sharing ideas of where our careers were going next and how it was, he’d navigated the loss of his beloved wife, who passed away, not too many years ago. 

 

We continued talking back on my porch and then he had to go.  He was heading to a concert with Alison Russel.  We bought tickets to go as well. We were to meet his son and daughter there.  I felt close to them as we’d talked and talked about our kids for so much of the visit.  And the deal was that we’d pick up my older one from Target where she was off duty at 5:30PM and drive up to the Belleayre Ski Resort to catch the first part of this concert but that we’d leave by 8:00PM to get my older one home on time to get some rest as she needed to go to work early in the morning.  But as we drove out passed Big Indian enjoying the music of Ms. Russell and joined the long queue for parking it became obvious that we weren’t going to be able to see much of this show and honor her need to get back early.  We decided to leave shortly after we parked and got takeout pizza back in New Paltz at Rino, where I yelled at my little one because she didn’t get out to help with the pizza and it ruined the meal. 

 

 

 

Saturday, 07/31/21