Our dear friend Frannie Glosson sent us this photo a few days ago, saying she found it in her attic.  Frannie is the wife of my long-time pal and Walter Reed army buddy, Dean Glosson. I say she is the wife, not was, of Dean, though he is deceased too soon, because I know she is.  Anyway, this is a photo of me, taken ca. 1974 in McHenry, Illinois, at Dean’s family farm.  It was so long ago it’s hard to remember the details, but we had taken a trip up there to see them when we were both barely a year out of service.  Amazing what hair you can grow in a year when you’re young.  I remember it as a joyous occasion, full of energy and hope.  We had been through a lot, and we were beginning our lives after service.  I met Dean in basic medic training in San Antonio in late 1969, and we then both attended the Clinical Specialist course there in 1970, an army LPN course.  We lived together off-post, with another amazing person, Pete Young. Pete, a daily farmer from Maine, was in the class ahead of us, and served in Okinawa upon graduation.  Frannie and Barbara came out to an Antonio in the summer of that year and we got apartments a street apart near the base.  It was a wonderful time.  As luck would have it, we both got assigned to Walter Reed in DC upon completion of the course, and both landed on the same ward, a neurosurgical unit.  There’s a lot to be written about that, but that’ll have to wait.  The first year we were there– two newly-wed couples– the Glossons with a new baby, Josh, we lived several miles apart, but in our second year, along with two other couples from our unit, we moved into apartments on Flower Avenue in Takoma Park, MD.  Dean and Frannie lived just across the hall from us on the second floor.  There was lots of music and good times.  We’ve remained close ever since.

Here’s what I want to say about the photo.  It resonates in me in a way I’m not really able to define, but it’s something about the whole trip.  It’s about friends, real friends, love and life.  Something about commitment and staying true to a vision we perhaps idealistically had.  I’m still with, and still in love with, the woman I had married just three years before this photo was taken.  We’ve struggled, but have lived the kind of life life we bought a ticket for.  Compromising as necessary, but holding firm to an idea that was more about grace than it was money.  My friend Dean is gone, but not far away, and he and Frannie lived a life of service.  I can think of no better tribute or way to live.

I am looking at the future in this photo, I think.  The early commitment to art, in some form or another, is there, and regardless of commercial success, that has been my path, my quiet, singular gesture.  I just wish I still had that hair.