Yesterday, I was standing on my back porch looking at the creek that runs behind where I live when a sense of déjà vu descended on me. But, unlike true déjà vu, it wasn’t a brief feeling. It stayed with me.
I scoured my brain for when I had felt that way before and finally, it came to me. I had felt this way hundreds of days during summers long ago when I was growing up in Cordele, a small town in south Georgia not far from the current coronavirus hot spot of Albany.
I assumed then that I was unlike most of my classmates. Why? Because I was never elated to see the end of the school year come. Some of you who knew me then will probably think it was because I was a straight-A student that I loved going to class and studying and taking tests and writing reports.
True, I did love to learn new things. I still do. But visits to the Carnegie library once a week and riding down the dirt road on my bike and exploring in the woods around my house in the country didn’t change the feeling. Because it had nothing to do with school.
I suspect that a lot of you had no idea. Many of you lived in neighborhoods in town and saw at least some of your friends. You went swimming at the local pool or, when we were older, cruised up to the Dairy Queen or Carter Burger’s or on some days went with friends to get a hot dog from the window at the pool hall. Then again, perhaps I imagined it all. That’s what you do when you’re lonely.
Except for a couple of special friends who attended the little church in my community out in the country, I saw nobody during the summer. Thank God for JoAnne Mathis (Birdsall) and Lisa Adkins (Houston) and Gina Harris (Agosto). I was always thrilled to “go home with one of them” after church to play for the afternoon, after which I was returned to my family at the Sunday evening service and sentenced to wait until the next Sunday, hopeful of another round.
Left and right c. early 1960s; Middle, 1972/1973
No, the reason I hated the end of school—and got increasingly excited as September got closer—was that I missed my classmates, my basketball buddies. All of my peers of those days—all my classmates. I hope you all know who you are.
That group of classmates has, of course, expanded dramatically over the years. Although I am an introvert and work from home so that not too much has changed for me, I am compelled to reach for the phone and meet friends for coffee or lunch or dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in downtown Asheville or drive down to Greenville, S.C. to meet with friends there. For a moment, everything’s all right. And then I feel that punch in the stomach, that thud of reality setting in.
As it was for me so many years ago, during this time of forced separation from friends, you are always on my mind. In the meantime, I’ll be listening to experts—and not media personalities or government officials who are unwilling to take responsibility for their actions. I’ll be wearing a mask when I go outside (as soon as I find or make one), I’ll be washing my hands until they crack, I’ll be standing at least six feet away from those I encounter on “essential” visits to the grocery store and such, and I’ll be wiping down my car with extra fervor before racing inside to Zoom.
I primarily looked forward to being with you at the end of summer, but I enjoyed school too, and I paid attention in science class, especially biology and life sciences. I hope you did too. I’ll protect you. You protect me. And we’ll get through this.
See you in “September.”
Prodigal Prophet 