Michael and Me, Allentown, 1959 • Photo: Author’s Collection

Dead Friends and Living Memories

A Geriatric Journal Story

When you are 84 as I am, almost every friend you ever had is dead. I read recently that I am now among the 1% of people in the USA who have (up to now) survived life. It is, then, an exclusive club and I hope to remain a member for a few more years.

Perhaps you are old when you stop looking forward and start looking back. If that is true, I am guilty — but on both counts. We octogenarian writers like to believe our life experiences have value for the youngsters behind us.

I subscribed for a time to that and even wrote a series here and a book, 100 Little Life Lessons, about it. Recently I tried to look through the back of the mirror and find reflected there the people who helped make me who I am today. I remembered and wrote about three friends who took me by the hand into a world of sounds and colors and ideas I never would have even imagined on my own.

I think I captured them well, considering the current state of my memory. I rarely remember what I’ve had for breakfast but I can quote Baudelaire and I remember all the lyrics of the songs from Carrousel, if anyone will listen.

So who are the friends that I desperately need to rescue for the last notes of my life’s symphony? You have seen one in the photo (above). That’s Michael V. and me in…