OLD FRIENDS

They say you can't go back. Well, in a lot of ways I guess that's true. But if you keep your mind sharp, and you are a nostalgic as I am, in other ways it's not true. The other day I proved once again, that yes, sometimes you can go back.

I met my friend Kim Stillwell on Facebook. Some say that site is a waste of time. I beg to differ. For one thing, my life would be a sadder place without Kim. But that's not really what this blog is about, so I'll save Kim for another time. This blog is about going back in time.

That brings me to Scot. Scot Peeler. Until last Saturday, since May 1983 I had not laid eyes on my old classmate Scot. Yep. That's a lot of water under the bridge. The last time I saw my friend, in fact, he was trying to hold things together out in his garage when the cops finally showed up to bust up his senior graduation kegger. My one and only kegging experience, and I got the full meal deal--well, minus the drinks! Got to see a bunch of my school buddies acting drunk and stupid, giving me all sorts of good laughs in my completely sober state, and then on top of it all I got the fun of watching everyone scatter like rabbits when someone shouted, "The cops!!!!" Great fun. I know, you might argue that it would have been more fun if I was drinking too, but that's the subject for yet another blog!

So anyway, Scot has been living in Germany with his wife and daughters, but apparently he comes back to the States now and again, and I didn't know this until his cousin Kim Stillwell let me in on the secret. So we arrange a get-together, another "full meal deal," where I got to not only meet Kim in person (and she's beautiful, I might add!), but I get to see Scot again and have a long overdue reunion. So we meet in this place in Idaho Falls, Idaho called the Sandwich Tree, Scot's favorite place to eat in that town.

It was amazing the years that vanished when I laid eyes on Scot. If you've ever had a good friend and not seen them for, in this case, more than half your life, you probably know a little of the feelings that went through me when I saw Scott sitting there, some twenty-eight years after the last time. He was the same old Scot, believe it or not. Not all of my classmates have survived so well preserved, but there he was, and he was still Scot. And as a bonus, Neccia (Jensen) Hahn was sitting there with him, a total surprise. Neccia was my fifth grade crush, although she probably doesn't know it even to this day, because I was too shy to tell her, then or now.

It wasn't enough to sit and gab with old Scot and with Neccia at the sandwich shop. My wife Debbie and I even followed Scot back to the old home place and visited for a few more hours, and man, the memories we dug up. For many years I had this memory in my head of Scot, but somehow, I guess as too many new entries were being made into the data banks of my mind, this particular file got put into deep storage. But somehow Scot remembered it and reminded me. Way back in the first grade, when I was scared to death of other kids and horrified to be in mean old Mrs. Blake's first grade, surrounded for the first time by more kids than I had ever laid eyes on, Scot was the first person to befriend me. We kicked one of those soft red balls back and forth on the asphault beside Shelley, Idaho's Dean Goodsell Elementary, and that was when I decided maybe school wouldn't be so bad after all. I have Scot to credit for that, and I'm thankful he saved that memory all those years and carted it out for me. It was a bit of nostalgia I won't let go back into deep storage again.

Sometimes you can go back, I've found, and the memories can sure be sweet. Old Scot. I remember going home for lunch in the third grade, Miss Hone's class, with money from him in my pocket, and on the way back to school stopping off at King's department store to buy him a box of Lemon Heads, or Red Hots, or whatever his pleasure was that day (and skimming three or four off the top as my "fee," although I never admitted that to him until I placed an oversized box of Lemon Heads in his hand the other day at the Sandwich Tree). I recall Scot with his long-ish hair flapping in the wind. He used to have this jouncy walk that helped it do that. Now he doesn't have so much of that long hair left, but he's still Scot, and I find after all these years I'm still just as fond of him. He's one of those guys who's pretty hard not to like. Some things you just can't shake--a bad cold, or a good friend. One you don't ever want to see again, and the other, like Scot, you don't ever want to lose.