My buddy Tim has always has my back. I call him "Teamy," and he calls me "Rock." Tim always accepted me for what I am, flaws and all. He appreciates my creativity and I envy his easy athletic body comfort and knowledge of sport. Tim was and always will love all sports. Statistics are his muse. We always laugh at the same sort of ironic humor, and share our secrets. We can go months without talking or years without seeing each other, yet we always pick up the conversation just where we left off.
We met in algebra class at seventeen, over 40 years ago, and shared a high school lunch table that was a lively, yet chocolate-box assortment of kooky kids. Tim was immediately accepted as a popular guy because he was a natural and outstanding athlete. He was totally miserable at first, having been transported junior year by his parents from Iowa to Burlington, a little town known for its insurance industry, but he settled in soon. His family was my first look at midwestern life and culture, and began my understanding that there was more about humankind than just being southern.
We became close friends in college, although we never attended the same school; and lived together one silly summer at the beach in his parent's house, doing as little as possible except being young; sleeping, eating and partying. We had a job moving furniture for an interior designer until a nasty sleeper sofa unleashed its fury on Tim's leg with a bloody gash that took us to the emergency room. After that, we just partied. We later lived the pivotal summer of 1976 across the hall from each other in an odd and wonderful old victorian house whose walls could now tell hair-raising tales of our seventies exploits. That summer was the best, because it was our last as boys.
His insurance executive father got me a job in '76 at a prestigious art insurance firm in Washington, DC, and his mother showed me the virtues of no-nonsense midwestern sensibilities, and gave me an appreciation of delicious Iowa ribs and corn. When she cooked, we ate well. His parents were always my champions, buying paintings from my art shows and sharing graciously their homes, their love and time. Once, his father had his company plane pick BJ and I up for a weekend at the beach. His father was generous and kind to a fault, and Tim has followed in those footsteps.
When we were seniors in college, we took an insane, snowy road trip to NYC with our buddy Flip to meet a friend at West Point. We stopped to eat at a McDonalds in Laurel, Maryland. After a quick burger, we realized this was the same establishment where Alabama governor George Wallace had been shot. In our illegally-induced daze, we thought that fact enormously ironic and funny, and laughed for miles that we had happened on the place where our hateful 70s nemesis had been brought down. Looking back, there was noting at all funny or ironic about a man losing the use of his body - it was tragic, no matter who; but on that night, driving in the snow, we made a pact to come back to that little town of Laurel, Maryland on our 50th birthdays, as a celebration of remembrance.
Tim has built his life back in Iowa with his wonderful wife, three beautiful daughters and a precious granddaughter. He turned 50 ten years ago, and on that day we shared laughs on the phone over those lost days of youth, and wondered aloud what we thought was so special about that night in Laurel, Maryland, and who in the world would go there to celebrate important birthdays. Ten years have past. Tim is sixty today, and I am six weeks away from that magic number. With some age behind me and the pains of aging upon me, I totally understand now why we made that important pact that cold, snowy night so many decades ago. We did not understand it then, but we just wanted to celebrate and remember what we were at that moment in time - young and full of joy and life, with all the possibilities of what might be ahead.
This is my birthday card to you, my dear friend. Happy day, bro!
