photo by © rel

This week has seen a paltry amount of writing from this author. Oh, I did put up a post on Monday and Thursday, but in reality, I've neglected my writing, reading and posting for the week. The fact that it is also the second week of vacation makes it seem worse to me since I should have had a surplus of time, time to attend to those things, such as writing, that I savor. I deplore excuses. They are poor apologies for not doing something you should have done and didn't and now your looking for absolution.

I've been in one of those doggedly unambitious moods and I just didn't feel like applying myself to too much that was constructive or required much mental exercise. Partly, this state of mind was brought about in concert with a melancholia precipitated by the deaths of two men my age, and the mid-week class and test I need to pass to maintain my certification and thereby my privileges to work at the hospital.

My Wife's recent retirement has fostered a resurgence of energy and zest for life in her that has had her busting her butt in the yard and flower gardens to get the manor spruced up. She has started a diet and kick started her exercise regime to include a start at some running. At this juncture I must say that she has not been a nag nor has she pushed me to do anything more than a few menial tasks. Of course her example did create a sense guilt enough so that I did keep up my exercise regime, welcomed the new diet regime and I did infact get some household tasks completed, but be assured that except for an 11 mile run, I did not bust my ass around here.

But, I digress:
This post is really about two deaths and a test. The test was anxiety producing only because I'm a professional procrastinator. In fact, if procrastinators got paid for their level of procrastination I'd be buying out Warren Buffet. Since I passed the test with flying colors I'll leave that as is.

On April 27th, 2008 Mike St. Andrews died. That would be last Sunday. Because he'd lived most of his adult life in Illinois his obit didn't appear in the local paper here until Wednesday. Mike was 61 years of age.

Mike was a year behind me in high school and therefore a year younger. We weren't friends in the traditional sense; we hung around with different people, came from opposite sides of the tracks, and lived in different worlds even in the same town. But in a greater sense we were family. We were siblings in the brotherhood of sports. Mike was a pitcher for our varsity baseball team....I was the catcher for that team. Mike was a quarterback for our football team. I was a guard and a linebacker on that team. That special commonality made us family.
I graduated and left for the military life. Mike had one year left 'til graduation. Things change and life moves on. It's the natural flow of things, and so you would be right to think that that was the end of our siblingry (-neologism-) so to speak.

February 16, 1966 I was waiting in the DaNang, South Vietnam airport to catch my flight back to CONUS (continental U.S.). I was goin' home from the war. As I watched the incoming soldiers and sailors deplaning I recognized one of the sailors...Mike St. Andrews.
We talked in the usual banalities. He was envious of my departure and I wished him all safety and good luck. And you know; hey man how are ya? And holy shit man it's good to see ya and yada yada yada. That was the last time I saw my bother; brother in sports, brother in arms. Mike with the calm, lamb like personnality and rel the boisterous, ferocious, lion.

The time is soon to be upon me Mike and I'll join you on the tarmac beyond this world.


Thursday last, David "Gordie" Warren died from complications from a stroke. He was sixty-two years old, same age as me. Gordie and I were siblings in the family of community. We live in the same town, his home town, my Dad's home town and my adopted home time. Gordie and I interacted countless times. Gordie was a smart, industrious, savvy guy. He could be everybody's friend but at the same time he brooked no bull shit. He embraced life and lived it to the fullest and he left us too soon....Gone, like a member of this extended family we call community.

Might as well get the third prompt in here while we're at it; identity.
Mike and I identified with each other on one plane. Same with Gordie and I. Each of us has many identities: son, daughter, husband, wife, mother, father, friend, worker and so on and on.
But in the end we will all share the same identity;

Dead.

I penned a little to poem to express my feelings iterated above, and if you've read down this far I hope you finish up with this.

Family
Ferocious
Identity

As turbulent times
Are wont to be,
This past week had
Ups and downs
For me.

A test to garner
My recert.,
On Wednesday I did spend.
Without success
Would my identity thereby end?

Bracketing the week
Front to back
Were two friends deaths.
One friend from long ago,
Just last week, the second said hello.

My friend from long times past
Was a meek and mild
Kind of guy.
While the other had a
Ferociousness from time to time.

Now they lay side by side
This lion and the lamb.
These two,
Members of
The family of man.

Sadly, over time
Their identities
Will be
Imprinted
Only
On a stone.