LA
=====================================================================================
Just some thoughts:
One of my favorite John Grisham books is one of his lesser known, but still a favorite, Bleachers.
In the book Bleachers Neely Crenshaw returns after being away from his hometown for fifteen years. Crenshaw was one of those high school wonders; he was a local football hero and some said, “The best that ever played for legendary coach, Eddie Rake. He was one of Rake’s Boys.”
Upon his return to his old hometown, the first place Crenshaw goes is to the old football field. He makes his way high into the bleachers to sit alone at the field where he made Friday nights come alive for the locals. He sat alone, with his thoughts. He had never played in a game on this field where he lost. Thousands of thoughts begin coming back to him. Not just of football but also his first, and probably his only real love, his old girlfriend, Cameron. From that thought came so many memories, some good and some not so good. Off to his right he could see the old scoreboard. Next to it were green placards with white lettering with the numbers of Messina, his hometown, players whose numbers had been retired. His number, nineteen, was among them.
As Crenshaw left the bleachers and made his way along the sidelines to his car in the parking lot, he saw Paul Curry walking toward him. Curry spots Crenshaw and they greet.
Close friends who had drifted apart over the years. You ever wonder why this happens? I have. Why someone we were so close to at one time in our lives, someone who meant so much to us and was so much a part of who we were, and just drifts apart?
The book deals with the matter of looking back at life and dealing with some things from someone’s young beginnings that have never left him. Maybe they never will. Most all of us have something or someone from our past that we continue to deal with in the present. Some never leave us, they remain like dust on an old book stacked on a shelf.
There is a line in a song from one of my favorite groups, The Statler Brothers. The line says
“Life gets complicated when you get past eighteen.”
So… why do we let that happen?
===================================================================================
January 23, 2014
Keep on,
Larry Adamson