I spotted a friend of mine from my school days with his son Sunday. I barely recognized him, left behind by years and miles, along with a river of memories churning in the water beneath life's bridges crossed (and sometimes burned for good reason). I hadn't seen him in about 15 years.

A chorus from a Tom Petty song comes to mind often these days and applies particularly well to the situation, "And the days go by, like paper in the wind. Everything changed, and then changed again. It's hard to find a friend." I've been reading Fyodor Dostoevsky lately, so I can only hope it doesn't end up making my column melancholy. Would that be a melancolumn?

Anyway, many of his rambling short stories are some of the most depressing pieces of literature I've read. One of his works mentions a man with an apparent affinity for his mustache. The author opines that perhaps the mustache existed first and the man was created for the sole purpose of stroking it. Now there's one that'll make you rub your whiskers. Most of his works are about lonely people, lost love and the pathetic underbelly of society.

I'm not sure, but I dare say there isn't another place in the English universe where one could read about Tom Petty and Fyodor Dostoevsky in subsequent sentences in the same newspaper column. Even I would have thought it difficult to do before it happened.

Anyway, my friend seemed somewhat happy to see me, if not overly so. He looked more 'hard' than the young man I had once known, the slight, happy-go-lucky young fellow who often spent his time reading and working on computers.

Now, all these years later, I saw a middle-aged guy with short-cropped hair and a chiseled face. The fellow who always was 'just a little' smarter than me now builds custom furniture for a living. I'd figured he would have ended up being a professor or something, had you asked me years ago. There's no shame in building furniture, but this fellow was a straight A student who practically had 'college' stamped on his forehead. Besides, it's hard to reconcile the bookish lad with the man who makes a living with his hands. Sometimes it shocks me so when I see my friends and how they've aged. I'm not that old, am I? I couldn't be. It seems like only a few years have passed.

Then I think, "Remember that video you watched of yourself a few months ago?" Therefore, I've sworn off mirrors for any purpose that is non-utilitarian. I decided to do that sometime last year. To avoid further detriment to my self image, I might consider spending the rest of my life fully clothed—in the dark—away from mirrors. Is that reflectophobia? I couldn't stand not knowing, so I looked it up just now. It's called "eisoptrophobia." In the medical definition, it notes that some people are afraid of peering into a 'supernatural world inside the glass.' If only that was my problem! No it's the natural truth reflected in the glass that bothers me. While Narcissus pined for his own image, I often wonder why my mental image doesn't line up with the one I see with the toothbrush. I suppose I, too, pine like Narcissus, only for an image long lost to the hands of time that never was an object of pure beauty to start with.

The first time I met my friend's father, he told his son to avoid me because I was a "long-haired juvenile delinquent." We later grew to like each other. I use those lessons to prevent judging people by their appearance. My old friend told me that his father has transgressed into a second childhood. Not the geriatric childhood that stems from debilitation or brain malfunction, but the kind that comes from buying fast cars and trying to be a 60-some-year-old teenager. "Everything changed, then changed again...." My friend's young son sat with him at the table, happily munching on a taco. He was a nice-looking boy, but I wondered if there was distance between the two just like the void between the generation prior. I hope not. Sometimes when I see people, old memories flash back to me like a mental electrical storm. Generally, the entire relationship is summed up in vignettes, ranging from a single picture to a collage of images or a brief film.

When I looked at him, I saw a reckless youth's laugh, a harsh and distant father who was a kid himself at the time, an intent boy's face working on early computers using 'Basic' code, sometimes programming simple games that were stored on data cassettes.

While this meeting went well, several times I have seen those who once were close friends, only to find them stand-offish or suspicious of motive. An outgoing person is sometimes seen with suspicion by those who haven't seen him or her in a good while. I know even I can be taken aback by too gregarious a greeting emanating from a long-forgotten face.

We don't always know what's going on in someone's life when we see them. Maybe they just lost a job or perhaps they have a headache or are involved in a love affair gone wrong. Maybe they need encouragement or friendship, maybe they need to lash out, be understood, reminisce or be left alone altogether.

Those calls are ones I've never really been all that good at making. I can typically see when I'm not being well received, although the 'why' sometimes escapes me entirely. Perhaps God puts those people in our path because we could share something with them, if only a moment's compassion. If so, perhaps we should all work on being more charitable in word and deed to not make such meetings lost opportunities.
 

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