Reggie Black and I have been having a long conversation about the past.  We talk about the present and the future, too, but lately we’ve been reflecting on the places we’ve been and the people we’ve known in the “long ago.”  I wouldn’t call it navel gazing; we’re seeking insight.

We talk and we talk and we talk.  We send e-mails back and forth.  Sometimes there is insight.  Sometimes we laugh, remembering how young and foolish we were.  Blasting back into the past like this is a distraction from our present day conversations about Peak Oil, tomatoes, Plato, powerlifting, and Paleo eating.

We even talk about the all-consuming fire that is the 2013 Moxie Festival.

In the midst of all this talk, I had to zip home for a Moxie Festival meeting.  I’m an alert driver; my hands are generally at “ten and two” and I keep my speed just under the Johnny Law limit.  I was “happy motoring” northward and a little black Honda Civic passed me on the left.  Something clicked in my brain and I thought “wow, that looked like so and so from Androscoggin Hall at the University of Maine at Orono.”

I slowed down and quickly shot her a message through Facebook:

“Did you just drive by me on the Maine Turnpike in Biddeford?”

After a few minutes, she responded:

“Holy BLEEP yes!”

For ten minutes, on the shoulder of the northbound lane of the Maine Turnpike, my old friend and I had a little reunion.  It was near the Route 112 exit in Saco; not too far from where another old friend lives.  I wish I could tell you this truck drove by and escorted us further northward.

(Photo courtesy of Joya Anderson Martell.)

It didn’t.

When I got to a stopping place, I posted a picture of our meeting on Facebook and we had a virtual college reunion right there on the internet.  I sent a “friend” request to an old friend from whom I’ve been estranged.  We got “caught up” in the way people do on Facebook.  No old wounds were mentioned and when I think about it, I don’t even remember what caused the fracture.  It’s possible I was being a jerk.  Yes, that is entirely possible.  She told me she lost her father last year and it made me sad.

My friends are graceful and merciful; they forgive my sins seventy times seven.  We are all moving through this uncertain world, working out our salvation with fear and trembling.

This morning, with my cuppa cuppa, I’m listening to a Joni Mitchell CD called “For The Roses” and thinking about my estranged friend.  Reggie Black will be sending me an e-mail about his hanging sweet potatoes soon and I might get a phone call about The Moxie Recipe Contest.   I’ll have to push these thoughts of the past back on the shelf for a bit…just until I can get through Moxie.  Then I’ll pick them up again and who knows, maybe I’ll organize an Androscoggin Hall Reunion.

Show me the way to Barangrill.