An old dear friend came to visit with us in the little house on Skinny Island last night.  We have known him for 50 years, but haven’t seen him for 25.  He has been living out in the mountain west for a long, long time, and doesn’t get back east much, though, like Papa, he is a Florida native, and in fact, probably related.  He was born in Jacksonville, with the middle name Cooper.  Papa’s great-great grandfather married a Cooper in Jacksonville in 1850.  The director of the original King Kong, Merian Cooper, was related, and we both claim him as a distant cousin.

This was my first and closest friend from eighth grade through high school, and beyond.  In a very real way we grew up together, supporting each other in the casual, unexpressed way boys do, in the passage from childhood to manhood.  After high school we went to different colleges, but saw each other on breaks and a lot during the summers.  When I played the guitar and sang, he was my harmonica player.  We learned to drink gin, and smoke cigarettes and those other things together.  He introduced me to Bob Dylan, Arthur Rimbaud, and Jean Paul Sartre, among many others. We joined the army on the buddy system, went through basic training and medic training together, living in the same barracks.  He went to Viet Nam, and I was sent to Walter Reed Hospital.  After our service we eschewed traditional mobility and enjoyed the counter-culture lifestyle for a time in Tallahassee.  We played a lot of music, and through a mutual friend, learned to be pretty decent carpenters.  Along the way we spent thousands of hours in conversation.  I learned more from this individual than perhaps any other in my life.  Last night, at a wonderful, casual dinner, and after, in the living room, it was very clear to me how and why.

He was our high school valedictorian, but never a bookish sort.  He just seemed to already know everything.  I was little better than an average student, but aware enough to know my friend had a truly beautiful, gifted mind.  In his early thirties he understood he wasn’t using that mind near enough, applied to and was accepted in medical school.  He became a psychiatrist, and for the past fifteen years or so, his practice has been with children and adolescents.  Questioning and listening to him last night was both an education and a lesson in humility.  The logical, ordered, deeply intuitive mind has been tempered and graced with a rare and genuine compassion, a sweet clarity of understanding that is simply transcendent.  I was once again lifted up by association.

We stood on the beach and looked at the ocean, and he expressed a yearning to be near this great body of water again.  I hope he will.

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