THE GIRL NEXT DOOR

Back in the dim distant past of my youth I had basically two girl friends. The first and the most prominent was Mary. She was a fun loving, outgoing girl of seventeen and the first day I walked her home from school there were eight guys waiting for her to come home. This will give you some idea of her popularity. She really was a neat young lady that I was enamoured of but never really in love with (Is that a dangling participle?) We went together for about two years until she fell in love with some other guy. (Can you imagine that?) Our last date was graduation night from High School and it was a wonderful night filled with great big band music, a terrific ballroom, and one in which I sang a couple of songs. But it was probaly the last night Mary and I were together. She was going away to school and I was job hunting. The next one was Marion and this was a diminutive little girl that made me feel larger than I really was and I had a definite superiority complex. However that didn't last very long and I found some reason to break up. The problem with both of these young ladies was that they lived on the opposite end of the world from my home. So I walked, walked and then walked some more because I was too cheap to spend the eight and one third cents to take a street car. Three times I walked to save me twenty five cents to spend on something frivolous. However, graduation night was a triple date with six of us in Moon Bauman's borrowed car. One of the girls was Louise ---my first knowledge of her. Later there was a number of us that worked in downtown Buffalo and every Monday as many as could would meet at Andy's, a spaghetti bar/restaurant, and dined on a large plate of spaghetti for ninety nine cents including bread and butter---a feast. Louise was usually one of the group meeting there. And now you know the rest of the story. We met and slowly became very good friends. I once told my Mother "She is going to make a great wife for someone". Little did I know. The kicker to this story is that Louise only lived a short block from me. The three miles I used to walk to save a few cents was now in the past and I should have known the love of my life was only a short distance away. She still is the love of my life and she still is only a short distance away.

MOYNSIE #1

It is difficult to write about my best friend and keep it within reasonable limits. There is still a strong link to him and most men are reluctant to speak of another with an admission of love. But love him I did and one of the things my heart holds dear is the hope that I will meet him in the next phase and I will begin laughing again. At 5:30 in the morning, no one was funnier and as the day progressed most people had better stay out of his way because he had a high degree of cynicism that would not stay hidden. In short , if he found any sense of phonyism in your make up, he had no use for you and it was seldom if ever covered up. Back in the days when we were all getting started with our families, our jobs, our finances, there were 6 couples in our "group". And over the years, one by one Moynsie would come to me and say, "Well, I have just alienated Lightheart's", or one of the other couples. He had a hidden need to "Hunt and Destroy" and it all came to an end one night at about 11:00 p.m when Louise and I were in bed and I heard a car pull up and a couple of doors slam. Yes, it was the Moynihans and his opening remark was, "Well, I just alienated the Klutes". I, in my philosophical simplicity replied, "And now you have a circle of friend (singular)". Rather than feel badly about the fact he had lost the last friend of our group, he thought my simplistic reply was very funny and it was as though I had successfully summed up his journey through life. There is not enough room to fully describe his personality. Suffice it to say, I forgave him everything and anything because should I have a need he was first one to say, "What can I do?" It all began when shortly after the war, we met at a bus stop near the University of Buffalo and although we had never been close in high school we knew each other and made a date to play bridge that week-end. It ended many years later when I, in Japan on business, leaned against the wall and cried hearing of his death. He was a Roman Candle that was so full of energy he couldn't maintain the burst over the long haul and I loved him for all of his idiosyncrasies, his craziness and his huge trips into humor. The funny thing is that for all of the above, I was the only one that fulfilled his expectations of the one person that could keep up with him---not that I had all the answers but I had enough to keep him laughing at my ability to reply in a manner that delighted him. I was the last of his "circle of friend". Can one man love another? I can only speak for myself. He was my friend and I loved him. More to follow. ------