“Weren't You Once Called Billy Bass?”
Memory is a doggone funny thing. If I cared to, I could sit here tonight and describe to you, in detail, an event that happened a half-century ago. I could tell you the people that were involved, the events that transpired, perhaps even the taste of the food that was served. I might even recall the conversations and how the people looked on that particular day. But ask me what happened the day before that event? Or the week after? Or maybe just a few weeks ago? It's almost a certainty that I'd draw a total blank. The mental fog that hangs around and conceals most of our yesterdays is as thick and opaque as an ice-coated windshield in January. But every once in a while during our normal humdrum life something is said or someone makes a remark that will suddenly connect some wires in the old cortex and, voila, something that was totally gone is... suddenly... back again. The fog is lifted and the frost is scraped away.
When I was a boy of nine or ten I was fortunate to have been exposed to the wonderful organization called the Boy Scouts of America. I had a number of childhood friends that had joined and listening to their stories of what the organization was all about and how much fun they were having in it galvanized me into deciding to join also. One of those kids who was instrumental in suggesting that I might be interested in the Scouts was a kid named Rick.
And this story is mostly about him.
Rick was and is a contemporary of mine, give or take a few months. We were both children of a post-WWII America – early members of what was to be later called the Baby Boomers or the Boomer Generation. We'd attended the same primary school in the early grades then had both shifted to another elementary school for our last year or two. We'd both been Patrol Boys where we performed crossing guard duties for the kids coming to school. We wore white Sam Browne belts and had badges proclaiming our status as “Patrol Boy”. We even shared a trip to Cleveland to watch the Indians play baseball with dozens (or was it hundreds?) of other patrol boys one summer. Those were back in the Rocky Colavito days, so it was a pretty big thing for us.
We shared a lot of the same teachers in the old grade school down in the “not so good” part of town where we lived and then shared others in the “further uptown” school we ended attending. Later we went to the same high school, which wasn't surprising as there was only one in our town in those days. We became fast friends somewhere in that time period and Rick became so common a visitor to my family's house as to be almost considered a family member, as I was at his home. Our mothers conversed with each other frequently and each took turns swatting the other one's kid when conditions warranted it, which they often did.
To make a long story short, we hung around together. A lot.
Somewhere in that time period Rick joined the Boy Scouts. And sometime after, some months perhaps, I followed. Rick had already progressed up the ranks a bit by the time I became involved, so he became a bit of a mentor or teacher to me. He helped me learn my knots, learn the Scout Oath and Law and all the formal “book learning” that had to be assimilated to become a Scout and to progress up the ranks. I took my brand new Boy Scout manual and virtually inhaled it, learning all the arcane camping knowledge and other scout skills that were described and illustrated in it's venerable pages. It wasn't long before we were the same rank and began to help each other learning the more advanced things that were necessary to reach the highest ranks and to work with each other to earn the merit badges that were also crucial. We were both aiming for the highest award that you can earn in the Scouts, the Eagle Scout award which we both attained a couple years later.
During that time period Rick and I also were passing through the excruciating time of life known as puberty. Well, at least I remember it as being pretty painful. He was the first to discover that girls weren't at all the icky creatures that we thought they were as little kids. The first to discover that there might be something about girls that was very interesting. Or maybe a whole lot interesting. I was a bit further behind in the maturation process and my interest in the fairer sex would blossom later on.
In those years Rick also started becoming what would euphemistically be called a “wild child”. He experimented with alcohol and tobacco and found that he liked both of them. In his early and middle high school years he ran with a rougher crowd and got into trouble from time to time. I followed a bit in his steps then but only to a lesser degree.
Rick fell in love as a Junior in high school with a senior girl, quit school and married her. I lost track of him a little before that period. I'd heard he'd changed his name also. Maybe. Everything was rumors.
And Rick gradually faded into memory; not forgotten but put away on a shelf somewhere, to be, perhaps, dusted off and peered at sometime down the road.
Now, faithful reader, let's leave the wonderful world of the early '60's and move onward and forward. Let's wend our way through the '70's, '80's, '90's and oughts. In fact, let's jump clear up to today. And let's bring into the discussion one of the social miracles of this time and age – Facebook.
So I'm on the computer a month or two ago and I suddenly get a message on Facebook from someone who asked the oddest question. It queried, “Were you once known as Billy Bass?”
Now the answer to that question is yes and the origin of the moniker that used to be applied to me goes way, way back, but the number of people who might even know to ask the question are extremely limited. I can think of three or four, of which most are deceased. I looked at the name of the sender and it's familiar... kinda. The first name is Rick and that seems right for the fuzzy idea that's buzzing around in my head but the last name is... not correct with the first one. But... it might be. Something about a name change? The owner's picture is there but it's current and I recognized nothing about it.
I thought a bit about my hypothesis, then wrote back, “Did you used to have a different last name?”
His reply was in the affirmative and, suddenly, I was sure of who I was talking to. This had to be Rick, my old friend from my late-childhood-and-early-teen years. My old mentor, teacher, friend and near-brother from the distant past. Rick. I'll be damned if it wasn't Rick!
We messaged back and forth a bit on FB and I found out that he was back in our hometown on a visit right that moment. He was here with his wife and their motor-home, was right up the road in a campground close by and he wanted to get together and share some memories! Would I be interested?
I was bemused, flattered and enthusiastic. Of course I'd like to get together!
So a meeting was planned for the following Saturday at my house. A mutual friend of ours was contacted and was planning to attend but an emergency precluded that from happening.
So on Saturday afternoon an unfamiliar car pulled into my driveway, two people exited and approached me as my wife and I waited in the yard. I observed the couple as they drew nearer. Rick's wife Ginny was a petite lady, light-colored hair, a pretty face and a nice smile. I liked her immediately. Rick himself was a man of approximately my size with chestnut-colored-slightly-beginning-to-gray hair worn long with a ponytail, glasses and some facial hair. He looked slightly similar to the magician/comedian Penn Jillete from the team of Penn and Teller. (He'll probably hate this association.) He was dressed casually as I was and I saw a tattoo on his forearm.
We shook hands, introduced our wives to each other and adjourned to my living room.
And we talked. And talked and talked and talked. There was so much ground to cover, so much time since we'd seen each other. We jabbered on and on about our lives, children, homes, activities and families. We reminisced about our memories of our times together as kids and young adults, what we did, what happened, what happened then and what happened later on. And as we talked, many memories that I didn't even realize I still possessed came flooding back. Camping trips, our folks, brothers, girlfriends and other poignant memories from the days when Eisenhower was president, the moon landing was a decade in the future and life was both much, much easier and much, much harder depending on one's viewpoint and one's circumstance.
And all through the conversations and reminiscing I watched Rick and listened to Rick and began to see the Rick I remembered. He was still there. The gestures, the way he put words together, his inflections and the tone of his voice. And more and more I could see the good-looking tough kid that was imprinted in my memories. And after he left I could hear his voice echoing in my mind and the old Rick came booming in loud and clear. Yes, I said to myself. That's exactly how he sounded and that's exactly how he looked and that's exactly how he smiled and laughed and acted.
It was as if my memories of the teen-age Rick and my present views of the extant Rick were blending and melding and metamorphosing into the man who had stood before me shortly before. My brain had gone through a million computations and finally done the mental gymnastics which had interspersed the in-between Ricks from then until now. And at last he stood revealed in my mind, the 3.1 model Rick, the latest generation, the updated and improved model of the Rick from the old days.
And it was soooo, soooo cool!
I stopped in to visit with him and Ginny two days later in their marvelous motor-home at the campground north of our hometown. We visited some more and they shared their scrapbooks and memories of their many journeys in the motor-home They'd been, at least to my parochial eyes, almost everywhere and had seen so, so much. Especially since they'd retired and “hit the road” for many months of the year.
And it was comfortable and welcoming sitting in their cozy home on wheels and listening to their voices and listening to the soothing thrumming of the early autumnal rain as it beat on the steel roof above our heads.
And on that day and in that place I realized that my old friend, my old compadre from the long, long ago was back in my life.
And I smiled.
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