Dear David

Dear David,

Today is your birthday. It seems like yesterday that we started the first grade together. I walked into that huge classroom, scared to death. Then I met you. We became instant friends. That was fifty-one years ago. That sounds crazy, huh? To be friends with someone for so long.

Then you and your family ended up moving into a house just two houses up the road from me. What a joyous day it was when my best friend would be so close! We played with Matchbook cars in the sand by my house, for hours on end. We prized those cars. We each had our own special carrying case, remember? We built miniature roads and bridges and ponds and rivers and creeks. Tiny neighborhoods for our Matchbox cars.

We explored the gullies and woods behind our houses. We rode our mini bikes all over the hills, and down the sides of the road, as far as our parents told us we could go. And then some.

Remember when we got our ten speeds bikes for Christmas in the same year? I guess our parents must have worked together on that one. We started venturing out a little farther on our new bikes. We would ride all the way into downtown. You remember how we used to put rubber bands around the legs of our bell bottoms to keep out jeans out of the chain? Nothing worse than getting your bell bottoms caught up in the chain, was it? Remember that time I had to coast home on the bike, pushing myself along with one leg because my jeans got caught and we couldn’t get them out? Thank goodness we lived in the woods. I had to leave those jeans attached to the bike and make a run for the house in my tighty-whities and tube socks.

Then we finally got our driver’s licenses. My birthday is a week after yours, so you waited for me so we could go together. You drove your mom’s gigantic green Chrysler with the vinyl top and I drove the Volkswagen my Dad had just restored for me. We took turns cruising from one end of town to the other, circling through all the fast food joints, just like all the cool kids did.

Then you had to move away. Your Dad got transferred to a new job. We wrote to each other all the time. We stayed in touch no matter what. Our friendship was always something I had and could count on. Our phone calls and visits, through the years, kept us close.

I thought we would be two old men one day, sitting on a porch somewhere, trying to remember our childhood and years of friendship. But it didn’t turn out that way.

Damn you, cancer!

I’m supposed to be calling you to tell you Happy Birthday. I’m supposed to be mailing a funny card to you.

I miss you my friend. It still doesn't seem real. Happy Birthday today, David.

Love John

From the mind of me.