Does it come in paperback?

“Hello old friend, it’s really good to see you once again.” – Eric Clapton

This has been a mild week medically speaking. I’m hoping that things remain this way for a while. I’m going off topic, sort of. This blog is for friends and family so I don’t think its too much of a reach.

Renee and I both signed up with facebook a couple of weeks back, neither one of us knowing what to expect. I still have no idea what to expect or what I’m doing. We get strange requests to join groups and causes, we get flaired and graffitied, we get tagged with photos that aren’t really photos. I’m clueless to this part of the program. But ….both of us have reconnected with some long ago friends that neither one of us is sure how or why we disconnected.

We all have our own social networks, the beer buddies, the work pals, the kids sports clubs but, as they say on Seinfeld, on facebook all of your worlds collide. Is this a good thing to show off your spiderweb of associations, or lack thereof, with everyone? Are we shaking the fault line when we start chatting up that first flame that we sent to ashes decades ago? Are those parts of our memories worth jogging or should we leave them buried at the bottom of the closet like that worn out pair of running shoes? And why haven’t you thrown out those shoes?

Finding these old friends is just like coming across those old shoes when you’re cleaning out your closet. You pick them up, you look them over, the stitching is loose, the laces frayed, the soles thin. Yes, you even give them a whiff. EE-yew! That’s pretty raunchy. But surprisingly, you are not repulsed. And for a moment they bring you back to that time when you could run, when you could glide across the pavement, when your greatest care was just finishing one short race. OK, so yours maybe earth shoes and you were just walking the dog. Still, there’s the facebook answer!

I’m proud of those old shoes. I’m not throwing them away. I’m not even going to toss them back in the closet. I’m tacking them up on the wall. I’m going to show them off – uh, a little airing out and baking soda first, please. I put in the miles. I earned that friend.

So here’s something new for all of our friends. I make no apologies for going all Hallmark on you.

Old Friends
By Bob Masterson © Old Paint Music

Memory can fool you
blocks recall of the past
But old friends they refresh you
Light the shadow that was cast

You wonder how you carried
All that baggage for so long
Trunk full of remembrance
Pushed it uphill like a stone
Fragile as an heirloom
That dust has settled on
Companion of your travels
Though you thought you were alone
Then simple re-acquaintance
Fills your air starved lungs
And old friends bring you back
Right where you belong

Old friends who said they loved you
Back when love was young
Old friends who hold your secrets
They won’t tell to anyone
Old friends that now are new friends
Since you lost touch for so long
Old friends you hold as dear as
Your favorite old love song

You go where life will take you
Sometimes it’s far from home
Then old friends bring you back
Right where you belong


And I'm not kidding, good buddies.


Be warned, old friends, you may be my next piece of wall art.