The older you get the longer term friends you might be lucky enough to have. At the ripe old age of fifty plus one I have known my boy Howie, aka: “Footloose” (the best dancer in a group of white guys in the 80’s it seemed to fit – plus he vaguely resembled Kevin Bacon in that classic movie) for about 45 years. We met in the first grade so what were we? 6? 7 years old? So do the math and it’s about 44-45 years. I need to figure that out one of these days but I think 45. We met because my mom (Momz, RIP) saw that another kid in my first grade class lived a block away so she connected us.
At that point, when kids were allowed to explore the neighborhood without parents trailing at all times, we would go out on Big Wheels and later bikes, with no parents and aimed to get home by nightfall. We played every sport imaginable, we collected baseball cards, and then we played more sports. My gosh did we play sports back in the day! 2 on 2 football in the front yard, pickle (aka: man in the middle) where we would flood the frontyard grass and then work on our best slides (Momz didn’t love that game), and all sorts of other games we invented. Then as we got older it turned to listening to music (back then KROQ was the cool radio station in Los Angeles and we listened to local LA band Oingo Boingo as well as all the “new wave” groups like Duran Duran, The Smiths, Modern English, etc…. Then, of course, as we were teens our friendship turned to girls and talking about them. Before you knew it we were off to college on different sides of the country….
We stayed in touch during college – and this will sound crazy – without email or social media! We used the phone and/or sent mail through the Pony Express… I mean the USPS. We met up in Barcelona as I did a semester abroad in London (that language was tough to pick up) and Howard did a semester in Barcelona. We hung out in the summers back in LA in between summer school, summer jobs, summer girlfriends… and we played more sports… golf, tennis, basketball. His parents moved up the hill and mine moved to Utah. Yes, moving from LA to Utah will be a post in it’s own at some point.
I am typing this as I get ready to talk to Howie in a few minutes. We talk generally once or twice a month. He met his birth mom last week and I am excited to hear the details about that. Heck, maybe I’ll ask him to guest blog one day and tell you about that experience!
I remember visiting Howie in grad school in Blacksburg, VA. Fun trip! We drove around the area and ended up in the next town over. There was a friendly game of hoops going on, in a local park, so I suggested we jump out and join in. We were the only white guys but the international language of picking teams and passing more if you can’t shoot works for people of all backgrounds. Now, I should say I never played organized basketball and Howie is better at tennis and golf… but we had a good time that day running up and down the court for a long while. Winning, losing, enjoying life! Heck, enjoying life when you could walk away from hours of exercise without having soar feet, a tweaked knee, and searching for Advil!
Howie came to my 30th birthday when we rented a bus and toured the Sonoma wine country. It was called a “wine tour” but was really more of a drunk fest. Blog, with pictures, will be posted eventually!
I went to his wedding in Santa Barbara, he came to my wedding in SacTown, his bachelor party in LA, my bachelor party in Tampa. Plus, we got together at other times – Thanksgiving in LA, snow trip to Utah, my visiting him in Iowa, and the list goes on. Now we get together once or twice a year for a guy’s trip usually. A weekend in Vegas, Phoenix Open golf, guys golf trip to Tucson, Chicago Cub’s game at Wrigley, and the list goes on. We are now talking about a guy’s trip to Scottsdale for Spring Training this coming spring and walking the Camino in Spain in the next year or two. I think our wives are happy to get us out of the house. Hmmmm….
Shoot, I just realized this is getting too long so I will tell you more about Howie another time. For those that know Howie will want some legendary “Howie the cheapskate” stories and I promise a whole blog dedicated to that! However, maybe I’ll also tell you about his success as a family man and a businessman!? Or maybe about the time we rode RAGBRAI (bike ride across Iowa)!? Or how good he is at enjoying life – a trait and skill we all should take lessons on!
For now I got to get back to chillin’ on this lovely Sunday.
-TheGuy