My Sunday Feeling

I'm not ordinarily given to nostalgia.  Or at least not overly much.  But I seem to be finding myself succumbing to it more frequently nowadays despite my best intentions not to.  Then again, as my friend and former colleague Danny said, "You've lived a lot of life lately."

He was in the passenger's seat as we headed to Ft. Smith the beautiful last Friday for a retirement ceremony in honor of another one of our mutual colleagues.  Debbie was hanging it up after 35 years.  Which seemed surreal to me when I pondered that I had been around for @ 30 of them.

I was a prodigy, you see.  That's the ticket.  

And I was down the hall from Danny for the same amount of time.  We hadn't really spent that much time together in recent days what with me living life and him working and being a single dad.  So our trip to the Fort was the first time in years we had really spent any time together.  

So we caught up on old news.  Did some reminiscing about those we loved and those we despised.  And we also spent a good bit of time with the fallback topics of most old guys: money, property and cars.  In our younger days we used to talk about women.  We know as much about them now as we did back in the day.  I guess the clock is ticking faster on the both of us now.  And we don't have the time to waste on issues we understand imperfectly.

The ceremony was in Judge Holmes' ceremonial courtroom.  A good number of our old friends from the Justice Department were there.  Some are still working.  Some aren't. There was much hugging, back slapping and leaning backwards while talking the better to check each other out while wearing bifocals.  

The honoree was positively radiant.  Much to our mutual surprise she acknowledged our presence during her remarks.  Any of a number of the speakers that preceded her pointed out that Debbie didn't have an enemy in the profession.  Which is pretty remarkable given the fact of what we do.  I know I've got them.  And I earned them. 

Speaking of money and property, the sale on my old house is set for next week.  And so I spent a good bit of time yesterday removing boxes and other stuff from the shed.  A couple  of the boxes contained a bunch of stuff from my old office. The one down the hall from Danny.  I hadn't looked at any of it since I left.  I guess I put the boxes of my life in the shed so I wouldn't have to remember some of what went on back in those days.  

After I filled my car up with the last load, I took a final walk around my old house.  Empty as it is now I heard my footsteps echo as I turned on the taps in anticipation of the upcoming freeze.  So the pipes won't blow up for the new owners.  They never blew up for me.  But you never know. 

I looked out the back kitchen window to the deck and cabana in the yard.  All the parties. All the Razorback games.  Back when the Razorbacks actually played down the street at War Memorial. I sat for the last time in the swing where I gave Abigail Straessle her bottle.  

I tossed the keys on the kitchen cabinet.  

"Good bye little house."

Danny's daughter is with him now.  He likes having her around more than he thought he would.  He likes having kids in the house.

I have a daughter now.  We Bowens don't produce girls. I like having Sarah around when she is home from school.  Her brother is still at Hendrix as far as I am made to understand.  That's cool.  I don't get much information. I hear from other Dads that this is not unusual.

I have a beautiful wife who tolerates me.  And you can see the Arkansas River from the front porch on our new house.  All is well.  All is better than I deserve.  I've lived a lot of life the past year.

Danny was momentarily alarmed when we wound up in Oklahoma briefly en route to I-40.  Once we got on the Interstate back around Dora (I actually knew what I was doing) he calmed down.

"Hey," he said. "Ya know?  We did damn good work you and me."

Yeah we did. 

It's enough to make one damn near nostalgic.  Maybe I will open those boxes from my old office one of these days.