sometimes coming up with a suitable title is a royal pain in the ass

first, happy thanksgiving one and all. here's to being thankful for the things in our life every day of the year, and not just on the day marked on the calendar. and now, the post i've been meaning to post:

every so often you find yourself in a location and situation and time when things seem simple, when life is mostly smooth and bearable, and whose memories you will always view with rose-colored glasses.

such was our time at eielson afb, ak. this wouldn't actually always be the case. we hated fairbanks. the cold. the lack of things to do. the long (8 hours) drive to the nearest decent-sized city with things to do.

but when we left, we realized that never since have we had such close friends, and such good times, as we did while we were living in north pole.

the winters were harsh. harsh like rubbing a sore spot on your arm. with a zester. then washing it with bleach and lemon juice. 50 below, snow in the first weeks of september and piling up constantly till may, two hours of daylight harsh.

thrust into this, virtually against their will, several hundred active duty military people from all climes and walks of life, and an interesting thing happens:

they told us that our squadrons would be like our families. i sneered, since previously my sqadrons had been about as far-removed from family as humanly possible. and considering the people i had so far met in my own squadron, i doubted i was going to be very close to my "family" here as well.

but in alaska they are fond of saying, "it's not what you know, it's who you know." i made friends with this person, who knew that person, who roomed with this person from ammo.

and ammo were the partyers. if you knew an ammo person, your weekends were chock full of drinking and silliness, shouting matches, telling a funny story in front of twenty people who would laugh their ass off not just because you're funny, but because you are family.

that is not to say that all these friends were the kinds of friends you would have forever. many of them were good friends while we were all there. a handful are still excellent friends with whom we have bent time and space to maintain contact.

somewhere between the "alaska only friends" and the "forever adhesive mates" fell f.

f worked in my wife's squadron, and could be counted on for funny stories, and good discussion. he was simultaneously extremely intelligent and very street-wise. his lingo would crack me up, being from an inner city. (i once told him that i used my own slang, rather than trying to talk "street." because me being a white guy made it difficult for me to say things like "a'ight" and "bling bling" and not sound ridiculous and poser. f being who he is, he smiled and laughed and nodded knowingly, and said, "you gotta be yourself, man, and everyone can respect that.") f always laughed at my stories, finding my droll-to-frenzied manic dry style very funny.

my wife im's me from work and says: guess who i just talked to on the phone

ghandi? william shatner? my mom?

f!!

no way

yes, i KNOW

no fucking way how is he?

he is here

here here?!?

for an inspection

it went without saying that f was coming over for dinner that night.

how wonderful it is when you can sit down with someone you haven't seen in several years, and it is as if the last time you talked was a few weeks ago. so much has happened in our respective lives in the interim, but there i was telling a story about battling with the kids to get them into bed, and there was f, laughing loudly and slapping his thighs and saying, "darth, you haven't changed one bit, man, one bit."

and coming from f, this is a great compliment. we laugh and swap stories, past present and future. looked at photos, reminiscing, discussing where the paths our lives have followed since we parted ways.

and somehow those long friday nights in another state in another time were combined with the tuesday night here, and we laughed and drank and smiled and chatted and it was as easy as it used to be.

darth sardonic