Today is my birthday. I become precisely 70 years of age shortly before midnight, having just narrowly escaped birth on May 18. A few minutes later back there in 1941, and I would have thenceforth shared a birthday with my boyhood friend and kindergarten classmate, Bobby.
Strange, in a way, that I should think of Bobby just now, I guess. We haven't seen each other in many, many years. Last time was when I visited him in Portsmouth, Va., to which he had moved with his parents even before grade school, I think. Anyway, it was summer when I visited, and Bobby then was in high school, and something of a basketball star, as I recall. Distance of our homes one from the other and time, as they are wont to do, conspired to draw us apart, Bobby and I, who early on were fast friends indeed. Since that summer visit back in the early 1950s, I've often wondered what became of him, what his life was like, what he did for a living, whom he married, if he did, and whether he had children. You know, the typical stuff, we would ask one another were we to meet again after all these years.
Sometimes I feel guilty, that I never really made the effort to find out those things. After all, it's not hard to do; certainly not anymore. Indeed, a couple well-placed phone calls might been enough to move the ball along. Or a search of the now ubiquitous Google, or, alas, Facebook. But I never did any of those things. I wonder why? Perhaps it was an inexplicable inner fear that filling in the gaps since would somehow ruin the sweet memories of the good times we shared as kindergarten classmates in the 1940s. Silly, I guess.
Yep, Bobby went his way to live his life, and I mine. And I truly hope his has been a good and satisfying life. But, I wonder if he ever thinks of me, on this the birthday week we share, even if we don't share the same birth date by fewer than 30 minutes.
No matter. Happy Birthday, Bobby. I still remember you fondly as my friend.
