CATCHING UP WITH OLD FRIENDS
In the late nineties, a member of the class of ’60 tracked me down at my home in Lexington, Kentucky. Richard and his wife, Brenda Grigson Jackson would be celebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and they wished to reenact their wedding and renew their vows. All their attendants would be there. Would the minister who married them consent to do it again? He knew how to tie the knot ‘real good.’ I consented and enjoyed another reunion. Brenda was younger than Richard and was, I believe, a sophomore at Charlottesville when I left Carthage and first taught her. It was so enjoyable to be a part of this remembrance.
A few years ago my older son, John, had car trouble on the other side of Indianapolis. It was only a few miles from the home of one of the closest friends I ever had–one who taught me a lot about open acceptance of people. I mentioned him in the preface to this book. While John and a friend fixed the car with parts I paid for, I called at Dick Merritt’s home. As it turned out, he was at work on a summer painting job, and his wife Pat wouldn’t let me leave before he arrived. We hadn’t even talked on the phone for over ten years.
When he got there just before dinner, he let out an exclamation of happy surprise. Then he said, “This is so strange, Jack, but…” and then he stopped.
“But what, Dick?” his wife urged.
“Oh, nothing. You wouldn’t understand.”
“You started this. Now spit it out. I hate it when you do that.”
He said, "Well, when I said my prayers this morning, I said, ‘God, it sure has been a long time since I’ve seen Jack Rhoades.’ And here you are. I can’t believe it!"
I guess when a friendship is strong enough to last for eternity, God makes us move on, knowing we don’t have to nourish it any longer. These associations, I think because they are marked with mutual deep respect, pick up where they left off without any doubting or proving. When I walked into a crowded room years later for his party of retirement after forty years of teaching and being an athletic director, he had been gravely disappointed that his aged father had not made the trip from southern Kentucky, and he had no idea Margaret and I had planned to be there. Instant tears glistened in his eyes. Dick Merritt had been my best man in June of 1958; I was his best man in August of the same year. My poem, "Broken Windmills," written in l977, was about this friend during a difficult time which he handled well and about adversity, which he overcame.
BROKEN WINDMILLS
My dear best friend from youth,
May I just speak in truth
About the shock you gave
When you appeared so grave,
Feeling life was rotten–
You who’d often gotten
Stern when I was passive,
And put your arm, massive,
On my slender shoulder,
Making me feel bolder
In the face of trouble
That seemed more than double
What it was really worth.
Deep-rooted in the earth
You were a source of pow’r–
My awesome windmill tower!
Now pains of deepest wrong
Have left you less than strong.
Still, quick to smile, bracing,
Turning windward, facing
Life squarely in the eye,
You muster strength to try.
Water yet is there
And wind enough to spare.
And you, sad and broken,
Your two blades, a token,
Do the work of many,
Hardly pumping any.
But there is life in you
If someone only knew–
Some carpenter who’d care
Enough to make repair–
And polish ev’ry blade
And whirl it, unafraid.
I listen, weak,
To hear you squeak
And cry in pain.
I wish again
That with a snap
I could just scrap
All that’s been done
And put some fun
In your bright eyes.
With clever lies
That, meant to tease,
You’d naught but please.
Then you, grand tower,
Would generate power,
Would be once more
The man of the hour.
