LAKE OSWEGO, Ore. — Jack and I chowed down a couple of burgers in a diner in this community’s downtown district.
It hit me as we chatted about the old days, mutual friends of ours and the good time we had as kids: these friendships last forever. Maybe in longer … if that’s possible.
I have known Jack since our days together in junior high school at the other end of the Portland metro area. Our lives took different paths after we graduated from Parkrose High School in 1967. Jack enlisted in the Marine Corps and went to Vietnam. The Army drafted me and sent me there, too.
We discovered today that we served in close proximity in ‘Nam for a time.
We returned home, met the girls of our dreams, married them and embarked on radically different careers, unbeknownst to each other. He sold real estate; I ventured into journalism.
Many years would pass before our paths would cross again. They did some time ago. I am delighted they did.
Today, we picked up as if that time gap didn’t exist. It was a wonderful, albeit brief, encounter today at the burger joint.
It just reminds me that friendships — those we create and then nurture — are worth the test of time. Ours has endured through that test.
It has helped validate my decision to venture back to where I came into the world. Yes, it has contributed to a bit of healing.