A reminder popped up on my Facebook feed today that a distant friend of mine, one that, at one time, I was probably closest to in the world for several years, turned 52 today.

He’s leading the way into the future for us.

I looked over at his Facebook feed and saw a bunch of strangers in his photos- including his teenage kids, whom I met once when they were very young. He was in no recent pictures. But his recent photo posts told me he is still out there, alive, raising a family, going on.

And I was pleased to see that.

This is a weird, baffling, painful time, this era of Covid-19. And as I push into my 50’s, it is also a time for evaluation, for raw review and acceptance, for squeezing my brain as if it was a tube of toothpaste, trying to press and push whatever is most important about the remainder of my life out of it.

I have been home alone now for over two weeks, except for a single exit to the store for pet stuff. I work from home and focus on work a lot. Because home is now my workplace, work remains sitting throughout each day near my entryway- my computer reminds me of how much I need to get done, and how behind I feel.

I think mostly about my family in this weird time, hoping my parents are secure at home, issue free, with enough resources and faith to keep them going and content together. Hoping my brother and his family, so far away in Nebraska, are protected and comfortable together. Hoping my active sister finds enough to do at home to keep her there with her family, they encouraging one another and helping one another as they are stuck inside together.

I think about friends, often those who I see more often than not. But my mind slips into memories, and I also wonder about the old ones as well. I pray for them in my anemic way, in part because these times dictate radical soul wrenching, and in part because being always home alone pushes my mind to think more about Him.

As for my old friend, because it is his birthday today, I had to spend some time considering that fact, and him.

I will always have a great place for him in my heart, largely because he was the guy I spent all of my spare time with in junior high. And that period was comprised of those painful years of being a person “in between”, when the child is becoming a teen, and hormones appear out of nowhere, and social awareness and disabilities are amplified.

I was grateful to stay overnights at his house on weekends, despite his parents’ chain smoking, after which I’d inevitably return home smelling like an ash tray with a slight headache. I was grateful for the voyages of imagination we took, discovering and playing the many old games that we did. I am never sure we finished many of the war games we played, but we started them, often around the time the late news came on, after we had eaten several taquitos we had warmed in the microwave, fuel for our late evening adventures.

His dad took us bowling, because his dad liked bowling as well, and it was one of the few times his dad suspended his diet of cigarettes. Occasionally, we would be dropped off at an alley and just play a few games by ourselves, I and my friend, and usually he would beat me by 20-30 points a game.

We met in Mrs. Thornton’s class in 5th grade at elementary school. I don’t quite remember why or how. We were both quiet kids at that time. But we both walked once in a while together from school, home on the same path, where we learned we lived 5 blocks apart. Maybe that started it.

In middle school, though, despite my church and band and sports obligations, it seemed weekends were ours. Going with he and his mom to a local library for some books. Us traipsing around in the large mesa abutting our neighborhood, and exploring its huge network of trenches when it was scraped of its plants, flattened, and split open for the laying of water lines for a new development.

He really liked the role playing game Traveller, which for some reason I never really explored with him much. He also loved Star Trek, and naturally, the game Star Fleet Battles was one that was often out in his room. He enjoyed playing video games on his Atari, which was a big deal console system in the day, and he was set up with so many game cartridges. Again, though, I was remedial in my video gaming skills, and shared less of that interest with him than in other things.

Avalon Hill games, though- that was our shared deal. We both loved them. He bought a lot of them, and because he had some, I realized I loved what they were as historical game systems as well, and if I could buy something he didn’t have, it was a win for both of us.

Sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade. So many hours at his house, in his room, staring at rules and game boards and game counters and dice results charts. A little D&D exploration for a short time, along with TSR’s Gamma World and Top Secret roleplaying games. Metagaming offerings like Ogre and Melee and Wizard and Car Wars. Panzer Blitz and Squad Leader scenarios. Fleshing out our own game ideas (my grandest effort was naval warfare in the age of wooden ships) and writing our own roleplaying and game scenarios.

That was my main safe place as a junior high kid, hanging out with him, free from my other commitments and personas, a mind untethered in a hundred different realms. History, fantasy, imagination, systems. And a good friend.

That was a while ago, that golden age of that friendship.

High school came, and we were friends, and then we grew apart. It happened.

We went separate ways, but dipped into each others lives again sporadically during college, and for a while afterwards. And then life carried us away in different directions.

Half a lifetime has passed. I suspect he is doing pretty well where he is. He was always going to be successful in my mind, and I think he has been.

I am grateful to have had those years with him as a best friend. It’s a period of my life I often look back upon with great happiness because he was in it.

Happy birthday, my smart, immensely talented and courageous old friend. I hope your life is full of happiness and contentment and peace, and that your family life is rich, and that your mom is doing well. I am grateful for the time you gave me back then. I needed you as a friend.

And maybe one of these days we can play another round of Gunslinger together some time.