That’s the setup, I’m not sure there’s a punchline.
But there was plenty of laughter anyway at the airbnb in Kodak Tennessee where I met up with four old friends from ‘80s grad school this past weekend. We’ve been doing that for several Augusts now, after having allowed geography and academic distraction to distance us too long.
The pretext so far has always been minor league baseball. We pick a destination we can all drive to, from our respective home bases in Alabama, North Carolina, and different regions of Tennessee—Nashville, Asheville, Chattanooga, Huntsville, Lexington, …
Then we take in a game or two, a meal or two, some other diversion or two, and proceed to talk ourselves out. Lately, as more of us embrace or resign ourselves to actual or impending retirement, the conversation has tilted towards the vicissitudes of mortal embodiment. Who knew, back in the day, what amusement our future selves would find in the recitation of so many ailments, aches & pains, and contemplated surgical procedures?
That’s not all we discussed, of course. Family life, contemporary culture, books and music, the end of the world as we knew it etc. etc. We felt fine, the more we talked. It’s not only misery that loves company, so does long experience and shared memory.
Friday night we saw the Lookouts bury the Smokies, then headed to mega-gas station and consumer cathedral Buc-ees. Kodak’s got the biggest one yet. You really have to be there, to believe such a thing might actually exist outside the imagination of the Texas entrepreneur who’s now cashing in on the preposterously over-the-top/only-in-America business plan.
Saturday we hung out yapping in the airbnb all morning and right into the afternoon, past the usual tolerance level some of us have for sedentary chatter (and past tolerable climatic conditions). We’d not left ourselves time for a longer hike, to the hidden relief of those of us nursing bad knees, ankles, et al.
But we did manage to haul ourselves to the nearest nature preserve, Tennessee’s first dedicated public bird sanctuary, and sweated through a leisurely hour or so circumnavigating one of the seven islands. We heard a few birds, spotted fewer —they’re smart enough to be early birds— and mostly tolerated the withering afternoon heat.
Back to the rental, we broke curfew and talked ‘til midnight.
Sunday already, time to check out. The commute home seemed to fly by in no time as my traveling companion and I continued the conversation. (I know so much more now about the physics of cycling, among so many other things.) One more Buc-ees stop halfway home, in Crossville, where everybody not in old-school church was crowded into the great hall of material acquisition. You really can’t fault the restrooms, or the best filling station brisket on the planet.
I’ll be conjuring this weekend in fond remembrance this Fall in the Happiness class. “Wherever you are, it is your friends who make your world.” Right again, WJ.
So, where to next year? There’s talk of Louisville or Indianapolis or Bristol. One of these years, we’re going to have to think about promoting ourselves to the big leagues: Atlanta or Cincinnati would be do-able.
But when we get together we all kind of revert to our younger bush-league selves, in a good way mostly. We may just have to stay down on the farm a while longer, for a little more seasoning.