"There's a huge turtle over there!"
I look up from the small park's lake sparkling in the heavy sun. A kid, about 13 or 14, is smiling intently at me. His orange hat matches his orange tanktop; I didn't catch the color of his pants, but they might have been orange too. He has a fishing pole slung over his shoulder and a pronounced country accent.
"Oh?" I look at him. It's after 6 p.m., but the sun is still at about 60* in the sky. The bench I'm sitting on must be facing northwest because I have to squint to see the young dutch fisherman in any detail.
"Yeah! A huge one. Huge. Big alligator snapping turtle. Head as big as I don't know what."
He makes a quick gesture to emphasize that the turtle was, in fact, larger than normal and points to the north side of the lake when I ask him where he saw it. I thank him and get up to go see if I can find it for myself. On the way I mull over names I might give the turtle after I take a picture of him/her.
"You've got two pairs of legs with trousers on and so do I."
Now I was sitting on a bench on the other side of the lake. I hadn't found the turtle, but I had found a man, probably in his late seventies, sitting on a bench by himself. I say hello. He looks comfortable on the bench,, like it was his favorite recliner. I ask him about the artwork all over the sidewalk that snaked its way around the small lake.
After he answered my first question we moved on to the weather. He seemed open to an actual conversation, so I asked if I could share his bench and he happily agreed.
So, where have you been?
A lot of weird stuff has happened since my last post to this blog. A lot of stuff that was really good for me, some stuff that I wish had played out differently, and the rest is just stuff that I take for granted but really shouldn't.
I'm amazed at how much can change in such a short span of time and how a chance encounter or a brave gesture can plant a seed that turns into a central drama in your life for the next several weeks. I guess it's one of the "up-shots" of being a bachelor or a bachelorette. You have a blank slate and, at the very least, the opportunity to meet new people and do exciting things.
And, if you're open to it, seizing those opportunities can teach you a lot about yourself...for better or for worse.
"And the point I was making was that..."
Roger had a metal plate in his head. In his forehead, more specifically. In fact, it pretty much was his forehead. His forehead and scalp were sunken in by an eigth of an inch from the rest of his face and head. It looked kind of like there was a door on his forehead that you could open so you could store your action figures in his skull.
I mention it because it was a pretty prominent feature and the first thing I noticed about him. But years of trying to be a sensitive gentleman had tought me to control where I was looking pretty well, so I kept my gaze on his dark brown eyes for most of our talk.
Which was pretty great, I have to say. By great I mean perfect. Like, it was exactly the kind of talk a 25-year-old man(?) dreams of when he sits down next to an elderly stranger. Roger was looking for someone to share his experiences with, and I'm nothing if not a good listener.
He takes after his father.
My mother recently retired from her 30+ year career of working with the infirm and elderly at a sheltered care home. When I was growing up she would take me to her office som times and all of the residents there would fawn over me. (Except that time when I was in high school and one of them accused me of being gay because I didn't have a girlfriend.)
I don't think I've ever told Mom this, but it was hard for me to go there. I have always been uncomfortable in hospitals and nursing homes, even when I was too young to really understand what was going on there and what those places were for. I don't know if it was so uncomfortable for me to face mortality so directly or if it's just the way in which the people in these places spend most of their time just...sitting...waiting.
I'll always admire Mom for being so compassionate towards her residents. She has a way with those people that can only be explained on a level as basic as spiritual magnetism. Mom has many stories of elderly strangers that approach her and understand there's something in her that they can latch on to and connect with.
I don't really feel like I have that capability or connection myself, and that's always been something I am ashamed of. But tonight, with Roger, I was doing pretty well.
"I didn't mention this before, on purpose, but..."
We talked for over an hour. Well, Roger talked and I listened. Which seemed to suit him just fine. Any time I interjected with an example from my own comparatively miniscule experience he looked like he was ready to take the reigns back as soon as possible.
So Roger talked and talked, and it was all good stuff. He told me about how he had met Henry Kissinger when he (Roger) was the president of the International Business Club (or something) back in the 70s. He told me how he was the vice president of sales at an international manufacturing company and how he had spent more time in airplanes than out of them.
He talked about how he'd lose clients to columbian drug wars and political assassinations. How he'd met Telly Savalas - Kojak - at an opera house in Latin America. He opined about airplanes and how most airlines in South America didn't keep their equipment on a regular maintenence schedule. We covered what I'm sure was a tiny fraction of his dating life and found out we were both Star Trek fans. He even shook my hand and then said "You just shook a hand that has shaken hands with Neil Armstrong!"
Roger said that Neil Armstrong was wearing glasses when he met him, which made me feel pretty cool.
Just like a gold crown.
Sitting on that bench in the park, watching the geese waddle towards bread crumbs tossed by curious children, listening to the water gush from the fountains in the middle of the lake and listneing to Roger talk about his amazing life, I relished in my Greeting Card Day.
A "Greeting Card Day" is what I call the rare day where everything is in sync. Circumstances adjust, the planets align and Murphy has taken the afternoon off. It leaves you with a feeling that all is right with the world and you are, at that very moment doing exactly what you should be doing where you should be doing it with the people you should be doing it with.
For a moment you get a taste of the uncomplicated joy of life. The ideal experience that the commercials and magazine ads try to sell you by claiming their product will get you there. It evokes that stock photo on a Father's Day card of a man and his son sitting on a pier, fishing while the sun sets behind them.
But there was no greeting card. No Oreo cookie or hot chocolate mix. It was a Greeting Card Day brought about by good weather and two strangers who were simultaneously in very different places in their life but both looking for the same thing; someone to talk to.
"That's your business and none of mine."
After the talk about women and money and celebrities Roger talked about the plate in his head. He had had a severe but non-cancerous brain tumor that had been removed. He said it had totally changed everything and had cost him everything...but his life. But he said that in a way that made you understand how thankful he was that he had been spared that much.
He talked about God and how the experience of his tumor had made him humble. Every now and then as he was discussing this story or that story he would interject with something like "Now that's just me" or "obviously you've got a pair of legs and some trousers on them, just like I do..." as a way to make me feel less bad about the fact that I had yet to dine with South American Strong Men or Secretaries of State.
Ultimately we settled on the fact that no matter how much or how little experience you have days like today are ones to be treasured and nothing should be taken for granted.
I'm thankful for Roger and beautiful girls and liquid courage and the internet and airplanes and Greeting Card Days. And I hope that when I'm in my 70s and I decide to walk to the local park to watch the ducks, there will be some curious young man willing to sit down and listen to me talk about how I had to use a telephone to dial in to the internet and got my drawings published into a national bestseller and who knows what else.
So Roger, I know I have some catching up to do but I've got about 50 years left and I'm going to make them count.
