IT HAPPENED LONG AGO

We live in groups of friends and families who share loves and hates and bits of bigotry, our love of games and all sorts of sports, of brands of booze and spins on news, on writers, artists---who's smartest?---of best vacations, worst relations, colleges and education, chicken soups and protest groups, double scoops of spumoni. Of who's sincere and who's a phony baloney.

Did you ever see Joe wiggle his ear while downing his beer? He's a laugh and a half, the cut up you like to shut up, the smart ass loaded with gas and lets it pass at every party. What a farty!

I can't forget what's her name, the dame with flaming red hair she bought somewhere. She was big on wigs and things like rings and far out clothes. Didn't have her nose unhooked so she could look like a movie star. She drove a fancy high priced car. Friends said she couldn't afford a Ford.

I made a date with a gal I met on the Internet. Said she loved to hug and pet, that she had skin I'd love to touch. She was not thirty like she said, but all of forty, plus. I got back on the bus. She was not for us, me and my dog Gus, my pet snake and my monkey who likes to pattycake,

When our old gang gets together, no matter the weather, we're friends and family, just plain folks who tell dirty jokes. We agree, disagree, rekindle lost memory, nod heads as we recall someone now dead. That leads into "remember when." We do. And that's when I miss you. The old crowd's thinning, time is winning. We're getting old. The coffee's cold. All the stories have been told. Echoes of the past are fading, Death is waiting.