Ode to T, or Sometimes It's Hard to be Cheerful

It’s not like it was, you know. It used to be that people moved away and you were not likely to ever hear from them again. Maybe a long-distance phone call, a card at Christmas, but eventually the contact would dry up altogether, and another person was out of your life.

Today we have cell phones, where long distance charges may no longer apply; Facebook, where photos are posted; Instant Messaging where we can “talk” in real time.

And we take what we can get, don’t we, where loved ones are concerned; because despite the desire that our wishes be considered in all aspects of life, the truth is that so much of what happens is out of our hands.

T*, long-time friend, hardwood floor artisan and wearer of slogan tee-shirts both clean and obscene is leaving Friday, moving thousands of miles away to Florida.

What, after all, can Minnesota offer against the ocean, year-round warmth, citrus fruits that – bear with me, because I swear this is true – grow on trees?

Oranges! In trees!

Who can beat that?

There are promises, of course, that visits will be made, that contact will be maintained. And everyone wants to believe it.

But I grew up on the road, and I know that despite our fondest wishes, there are points in our lives from where we can look back and see the very moment things changed.

This is one of those moments.

Farewell, T. Write when you get work.





* See “My Weird Friends” along the right over there to read more about T.