Can you call someone a friend if you haven’t seen him in 40 years?
On Monday, I heard the news of the death of my old
friend David. He suffered a stroke and was being transferred to rehab in
Daytona Beach when his body gave out. The news came to me on a Facebook post
from Dave’s sister in L.A. I was shocked. He is not one of the first to die in
my high school class – Class of ’69. We’ve all hit 70 now and the inevitable
cohort replacement grinds on every day.
The last photo I saw of David showed him holding an
AK-47 which he was using for target practice out in the Florida woods. He had a
gun hobby. He also was a dedicated fisherman. He once ran a popular bait shop
in Daytona. He could talk your ear off about fishing and often did. We went to
high school together and were roommates once on a little acreage we called The Farm.
It was anything but a farm. It was an old house on Hull Road in rural Ormond
Beach. The road was named after the family who built the house, one of the
area’s first human residents besides Native Americans and the occasional
Spanish explorer looking for the Fountain of Youth or cities of gold. Our high school, Father
Lopez, was named for the priest who accompanied Pedro Menendez de Aviles when he landed in St. Augustine in 1565 to kill French Huguenots. Ponce de Leon had claimed Florida for Spain in 1513 during his fruitless
search for youth, something, I guess, many Floridians search for.
Our little house had three bedrooms, one bathroom, a
kitchen, a massive fireplace, and an outdoor shower. Our girlfriends hated that
shower even though we assured them that nobody could see them as our property was
surrounded by forest. Didn’t seem to make a difference. They would take baths
in our big iron tub or wait until they returned to their respective civilized
indoor showers. Picky, picky.
The property was owned by a group of physicians who
had bought it for an investment. This place will someday be filled with houses,
they contended, and we laughed about it when we got stoned on the weed stashed
on the farm by a friend who swore us to secrecy. Years later, as time marched
on, the land was bought by a developer and now is a thriving neighborhood
called Tymber Creek. That’s timber with a y as in “some tymber was sacrificed to
build these spacious homes.”
I have fond memories of a man who meant so much to me
long ago. In 1971-72, David and I were college dropouts. The military draft
passed us by. I worked days as a hospital orderly and David worked evenings as a cook at a pizza
joint. He brought home the leftover pizza that became our breakfast, lunch, and
dinner. We could exist on pizza because we were 21 and always on the move.
Our futures had already started. I wandered the
property with our dogs, always alert for rattlers and coral snakes. At
twilight, we stopped at an open field and watched the bullbats. As they dive for insects, they make a strange whooshing sound. I’d come back
to the house to write, always writing. David was out casting for bass or snook on the
Little Tomoka River, looking for something out there on the Florida waters. I
hope he found it.
Anything was possible then.
During the 1970s, I went back to school and then returned to the
area many times as I looked for work and finally decided to light out for the
western territories. That’s where I am today. Still writing.
David, may the fish be plentiful and feisty in the Beyond.
2 comments:
Michael I love your memories of times spent with my brother. I will share them with our family. Fondly. Dorie
It was a special time in my life. David was a big part of it. Fifty years later, I remember some things vividly and some just float around in the ether.
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