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James A "Jim" White
Tomorrow is Kathy's and my 50-Year anniversary. I thank you for those that wanted to send her sympathy cards but restrained yourselves. In any event, today is Thanksgiving and as I was reviewing some of the poems I wrote to or about my wife, I ran across one I wrote on Thanksgiving a few years ago about classmate friends that are/were close to me. I had forgotten it and surprised I kept a copy. We, our class, lost Cliff Sanders and Chip King, and the rest of us are hanging on by our fingernails. Pardon me for abusing your time as I go down memory lane with a few close friends, and pardon me for not mentioning other friends that are as close. The unnamed ones, I love them all.
My Classmate Friends
“Why haven’t they called me?”
Those classmates friends of years gone by,
“Is it because our friendship
will never require a constant ‘Hi’?”
I don’t remember their numbers,
I don’t call them enough.
Their birthdays in August and October,
are never remembered by cards and such.
We lost each other for decades
before Cliff Sanders helped get us in touch;
“Who would have thunk it,
that Chip King was made of NASA stuff?”
I am lucky if I see Jim Brown or Dick Davis
more than once or twice a decade;
although Terry Boone comes by on business,
sometimes just to see if we can still play.
It has been less than ten years
Since I met Boone in Juarez for a bit.
Now we seem to be marking time,
by all the bad habits we’ve quit.
And we still laugh aloud about
the goofy stuff Cliff was trying to avoid.
Man those were great times in the Cabin,
we have Jim Brown to thank for the joys.
We’ve had each other’s backs
like ligaments to a bone;
it is friends like this I count
as one of the greatest assets I own.
So this Thanksgiving I’d like to say
to those named and unnamed too,
Thank you for the memories,
where would I be without you?
~the Seattle Sage
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