Good Morning;
What a beautiful spring morning, not too warm, not too cool, no rain, a bright blue sky with scattered puffy white clouds...my only request would be to turn the brightness down a smidgen and maybe increase the contrast a notch...kind of take the too sharp edge off of everything......
Last night was one of those nights where I couldn't fall asleep and when I did I kept waking up every 20 minutes, needless to say getting up at 6:45 am. was not a pleasant task. I wanted to have enough time to roll and fold and stack everything in the shed, and put on a fresh set of clothing from the skin outward, and to wash up and shave and brush my teeth, and to be sure I caught the bus up the road to the Hilton for my breakfast with Mike. I headed over to the gas station and took care of my morning ablutions and as I got to the bus stop, either one bus was 20 minutes late, or the other was 15 minutes early, bur anyway I was able to arrive 15 minutes early and grab a free cup of coffee and relax on the couch before Mike showed up at 8:00 am.
I don't think I would have recognized him at first glance if he had not been wearing a Md. State Police polo shirt and hadn't called out a hello from down the hallway. I instantly recognized his voice..THAT is exactly the same although the body shows the 20 or so years since our last meeting, and he chooses to sport the same hair style as I do, a common choice for the follicly challenged male.....lol!
We had a good breakfast from the buffet and it was again a pleasure to use real silverware and have hot food I did not have to cook. We stepped back into conversation and friendship as if it had only been a few weeks since we last saw one another...(except for the obvious things such as....multiple marriages, children and step children...lol!). He retired as a high ranking officer in the command and operation structure of the Md. State Police a few years ago, and the last time I saw him he was beginning his climb up into the realm of the political 'wonderland' of the agency, and I was at the beginning of my high speed downhill slalom on the mountain of 'Colombian Snow'. I was still aware enough to realize that association with me could only cause him trouble so after our last evening out..(at the Firehouse Tavern in Carney which was owned by a fellow volunteer firefighter)...I broke off our association and for his sake, I am glad it turned out well.
We talked for about an hour and a half and the conversation kept jumping from past tp present as we caught up with each other's lives, interspersed with many "do you remember whens" and "what ever happened to??" I think both of us realized how much we have missed each other, (for a 6 year period, during the important formative years of junior high and high school we were pretty much inseparable, and still so, although to a somewhat lesser extent for the next 3 or 4 years after graduation...I mean he's the guy who took me in handcuff's, while he was in full uniform, to the courthouse for my wedding, and was my best man...[needless to say the soon to be wife and inlaws were a bit freaked out when I entered the judges chambers...lol!]...and I was an usher at his wedding, to the woman who I had finally gathered up the courage to ask out....and who HE had asked out 20 minutes earlier....lol!), and how much we don't want it to be another 20+ years!
Stop The Presses!
Okay!!!! we're in realtime here now! This is bizarre!!! I am sitting here typing and I look up and the librarian is pointing me out to a woman across the table, sying "there is Mr. Cluster". She comes up and introduces her self, aying her maiden name is the sam s mine and could we be related? She saw the JT article and since she frequents the library also has been checking to see if I am her when she is.
This is so freaky, she may be a cousin, from my grandfather's first marriage, whic hwas adeep dark family secret, which my father, (and possibly my grandmother also), did not know about until his father's death, because in those days, it just was not done, leaving a wife and family, especially in the Jewish community. i am signing off now, she is waiting to talk with me.
more as this story develops!
later.......................Dave
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