Banner photo of Larry Eugene Meredith, Ronald Tipton and Patrick Flynn, 2017.

The good times are memories
In the drinking of elder men...

-- Larry E.
Time II

Monday, July 2, 2018

Old Friends and Old Flames

Over the years of my life I have seen friends come and go. I never had big groups around me. In each phase of my life I had a few good friends, people who I could relate to well and vice versus. Often these came out of categories of life: friends from work, church, school, etc. I had friends I grew up with and social friends I met here and there. Many of my friends were writers, poets, artists, musicians, playwrights and actors. This was true in my days living in Philadelphia and later in Delaware. Many friends have disappeared over time because they or I moved or we changed jobs and some died. Circumstances of the world we live in dictated some of this.

There are some who I can call lifetime friends, knowing them and communicating with them since early childhood, even infancy, to today: Iva Darlington, Stuart Meisel and Ronald Tipton especially. They are some old classmates still in my universe, and even some relatives that were friends then and now and friends not because of blood.

Here is a compilation of my friends from near birth until now when I am mush closer to death. Most are old friends, but some are recent and current.  I have probably missed including some and I apologize' although, maybe they are glad to be missed.

I originally was going to do a second and separate set of my old flames, but changed my mind and just intermingled them with the rest. Some of these were like passing ships and some I was very seriously in love with. Some even broke my heart. Some have passed away; in fact, several, just as several of my closest friends have gone on to some other place than here on earth. Some I have no idea where they may be.

I would have liked to played Simon and Garfunkel's' Old Friends, but you know, copyrights get in the way.

I can leave it with the poem I wrote that gave me the title of this blog:

Time II


Speak of the good days
And all the good times

Quickly.

Time marches on.

Drink the fine vine.
Lift up your cup, be drunk!
The grape was a good year.
Drink long and deeply sample.

The grand year is nearly drank.

Reminisce good times
Over our good wines.
All the good times, if they were,
They are less dead.

The good times are memories
In the drinking of elder men,
As if they exist.

Exactly as if they were.


From the collection, Lost Laughs and Last Lovers





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