Blast from the Past

I got an email from an old friend recently. When I say "old friend," I don't mean a friend who is significantly older than me, and I'm not speaking about someone I've known a long time and am still close friends with. No, in this case, I'm talking about a friend who used to be inseparable from me, but time and circumstances have taken us apart. He got a facebook account and emailed me to let me know. Here's my reply... slightly edited to removed names...

Got your Facebook email. Sorry for the slow response. I don’t have a facebook account and don’t plan to get one – for now. There are few reasons for this…

-My 16-year-old daughter has a facebook account. She’s a bit of a slacker at school, but overall she’s a good, responsible kid. As long as she keeps her shit wired, I want to give her some areas that are dad-free. Facebook is one of the areas I chose as a dad-free zone. (Of course, as I say this, understand that I know her username and password, so I can snoop if I need to.)

-I already blog, write in a long-running journal, play Xbox 360 occasionally, play guitar and so forth. I need to make sure that I don’t have so many hobbies that my family suffers, and I know how much time facebook can consume.

-As a computer geek, I already spend too much time on the computer.

-I don’t like the idea that any Tom, Dick or Harry can search for me on Facebook.


That said though, your comment about entering boot camp 22 years ago really hit home and brought back a lot of memories of time we spent together…

-Meeting you as we checked in at NAS Millington. I don’t remember much about the conversation, but I recall sitting in those plastic chairs in the hall, chatting quietly as we waited for our names to be called for check-in.

-Finding out that your platoon, [31xy], and my platoon, [31zz], were arch-rivals in boot camp.

-How we both stood back and laughed to ourselves as our platoon-mates tried to beat the snot out of each other before the Drill Instructors came and broke shit up. That moment told me that we were birds of a feather.

-Hanging around with you and [Name omitted] in Millington.

-Tustin…

-Trying to burn your cammies on that windy, windy night at Balboa beach. If I remember correctly, it was a celebration of your discharge from the suck. But it was so windy that they wouldn’t light, so we tossed them off the end of Balboa pier.

-[You],[Me], and Jennifer squared. [We were both dating girls name Jennifer at the time]

-Beth [Name omitted]. When she worked at the PX, we both thought she was cute. You asked her out. I stole her from you. I got deployed. You stole her back. We understood the whole “bro’s before ho’s” thing. You took one for the team by giving her up. I took one for the team by finding out she had the clap before you stole her back.

-Gayle [Name omitted]. You thought she was cute. You asked her out. I stole her from you. That was twice you took one for the team. It took me a long time to realize exactly how fucked up that was. We were a team, and I took advantage of that shit once too often. I don’t know whether or not I ever expressed regret for stealing chicks from you. If not, please consider this my formal apology. I hope you consider this my only transgression.

-The countless weekends in Oceanside with your family… home-cooked meals… hating the fact that we were Jarheads in one of the biggest Marine towns in the country

-Trips to Palomar Mountain… driving a Hyundai up and down the twisty roads, pretending that we were race car drivers. Hitting the observatory just so we could have snowball fights.

-“… E… i… n…i… Encinitas” (One of my personal favorites)

-Driving to (insert town here) to get a newspaper and a Coke. San Francisco was my favorite.

-You and your General Hospital

-Drinking beer in the barracks

-Two words… Ranch House. The Ranch House, by the way, no longer exists.

-Exploring the rocky beaches between Newport Beach and Laguna Beach

-Driving up and down PCH

-Cruising I-5 and I-405 in the Hyundai, with my pink Fisher-Price telephone on the dash, and you writing shit in a spiral notebook. “Show us your tits.” I’m still surprised how often we got chicks to pull over and talk to us with that shit!

-The profound sense of injustice I felt when you were discharged in 1991. I was happy for you, but I knew it was the closing of a chapter in my life. I wondered how I’d go on without my best friend there beside me… hoping that we’d stay in touch like they did in those AT&T commercials, assuming that we would fly or drive, whatever the cost and whatever the distance, at least occasionally, to see other.

-The slow realization that we were drifting apart… the denial… the anger… and finally, the wistful acceptance. It’s been 17 years since we last spoke face to face. I still look back on our time with incredible fondness. I still wonder what you’re up to, and I’m still open to getting together with you in the future. I’ve long since stopped hoping that circumstances would bring us together… a work conference… a cross-country trip… whatever. I get that we’ve gone our separate ways, but I still get the urge to talk to you and I continue to hold out the hope that one day our paths cross again. You were an important chapter in my life. You made my enlistment much happier, and my life much fuller.

[Me]