A Story of Renewed Friendship, Part I
My best friend from childhood called me after 47 years
My childhood from eight to twelve years old was a golden chapter in my life that felt like it would go on forever. In the early 1970's I lived in Evergreen, Colorado, a small town in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, about 40 minutes west of Denver. My dad was working on his dissertation at the University of Denver for three of those four years paid for by the U.S. Army, while my mom was training horses on our five acres at the end of a dirt road. My two older brothers, myself, and my younger sister were ensconced in a perfect environment for a childhood my mom couldn't imagine when she was growing up in Norway during WWII under Nazi occupation. I even had a pony, a white Icelandic horse named Impy, with an obstinance only matched by my own. Impy taught me that a storybook life of a boy and his pony might only exist in storybooks. When I was thrown from his back my mom encouraged me to get back on, again and again. I learned resilience, which would serve me well in the future. In the summer of 1974 everything changed when we moved to California. My dad finished his PhD at the University of Denver and was stationed at The Presidio in San Fransisco. I said goodbye to my best friend Scott Torrison, to Impy, to Evergreen, to my childhood. We settled in Mill Valley, just 10 miles north of The City across the Golden Gate Bridge. Within a year my mom was dead, having been thrown from a new horse she was training. Anything that was once golden was now grey, a profound and debilitating grief that only lifted when I met Annie when I was fourteen. We were married when I was seventeen and at eighteen we were new parents, a lightning flash of maturity through adolescence to young adulthood.
This summer I got a phone call from Scott. I counted on my hands, and then recounted, the number of years that had passed since I last saw him. Could it be forty-seven years? Scott and I grew up in a time and place where our freedom was unchecked, helicopter parenting was decades off, and looking something up meant going to the library or using the home encyclopedia collection bought from a door-to-door salesman. We were shooed outside to play in all weather as long as we came home for dinner. When we woke up after a snow storm we bundled up and created toboggan runs with a hand-packed jump positioned on the hill for maximum speed and air, built snow caves that connected to each other with long tunnels, and one time attempted flips from the railing of the second floor deck into five feet of fresh-fallen snow.
With the little TV we were allowed to watch on the three channels caught by rabbit-eared antennas, musicals were deemed appropriate entertainment by our parents. The day after West Side Story aired the entire male student body of our 4th grade class, and then joined by younger classes, split up into the Sharks and the Jets, attempting to reenact the rumble during lunchtime. Things went a little too far and stunt fighting evolved into the real thing. During hot summer afternoons we would seek out the cool basement or rec-room (some called it a rumpus room) to play our parent's records, again mostly musicals. We wore out the 45 of Dear Officer Krupke by acting out the whole scene and lip-synced our way into our parent's hearts. At least we weren't fighting.
Scott and I played Cowboys and Indians, always arguing over who would be the Indian (it was the early 70's and Hollywood stereotypes were ingrained and cultural appropriation wasn't acknowledged yet). We were blood brothers, literally, a pin prick and pressing of thumbs in solidarity that our friendship would last forever. In play, we were always in nature as we shimmied up rocks and made forts in the conifer forests, our imaginations as big as the Colorado sky. Our childhood bodies were closer to the earth, closer to the soil and the insects, the grasses and the pine needles and the wild flowers. It's easy to lay down on the earth in a child's body when you're that close to the ground and then spring up and scramble from boulder to boulder. Scott and I would return home at dusk with our hands and faces dirty, our clothes and shoes full of dust.
As long as my chores were done I could spend the night at Scott's house. His parents, George and Gloria, were loving, engaged parents, and would kiss me goodnight on my forehead. Scott's little brother, Jeff, was my sister's age but would often hang out with us. One summer I went on vacation with them to Glenwood Springs, Colorado where we soaked in the hot springs and then onto the small ghost town of Cyrstal where we stayed in a rustic cabin, would fish on our own in the nearby ponds for trout that somehow found their way into the pond but not out and grew to preternatural sizes. We would take long hikes through the mountains together and across meadows spotted with Indian Paintbrush, shades of red colors that as a ten year old boy I still remember.
The Torrison's were a second family to me. When my mom died George and Pastor Adix from our church in Evergreen flew to California. I remember sitting in our living room with family and friends when the doorbell rang. I assumed it was a neighbor delivering a casserole dish — our refrigerator was overflowing —so I volunteered to answer the door. There stood George Torrison and Pastor John Adix with an expression on their faces that summed up the trauma that befell our family, and yet, a beatific one too, that said, without words, that their love and the love of the Evergreen community is with us.
Scott called me out of the blue recently. His mom was looking for an address of my Uncle Knut in Norway who was an exchange teacher for one year in Evergreen when we lived there. Scott's brother was a student in his class. Gloria found my cancer history on the internet and suggested to Scott to call me. He was going to be in the lower 48 from his home in Alaska. I invited him to stay with us in Bend, not knowing anything about his life, and not knowing if I would be up for a visit when the fatigue from cancer treatments could be unpredictable.
In the dark of the curbside pick-up at midnight at the Redmond airport 25 minutes north of Bend and on the car ride home, Scott and I picked up right were we left off forty-seven years ago. We shook off any anticipation that we may have changed beyond recognition in our adult bodies and minds, but we found our spirits intact. I settled Scott into the guest room and fell asleep quickly, four hours past my normal bedtime, anticipating a morning of discovery.
In the next three days we told stories from our adventurous lives, each story getting deeper into the archives of our existence, a trust of friendship that allowed for honesty and vulnerability. We talked over the kitchen counter while I prepared meals and Annie made coffee. We discovered that we both loved black coffee first thing in the morning but I liked it piping hot in a Yeti mug with the top on and he like to let his coffee cool down in an open mug, the steam rising in front of him then dissipating until it was just the right temperature. That's where our differences ended.
On long hikes along the Deshcutes River that cuts it's way through Bend we would talk. Through the natural wonder of Smith Rock in Terrebonne, a canyon carved over thousands of years by the Crooked River, we walked and talked and stood in awe at how geologic time changes the landscape and yet the elements are all the same: the air, the water, the atoms of the rocks and the trees. Then in moments of silence we would listen for Golden Eagles that nest in the northern canyon, the Peregrin falcons that drop from their cliffside homes to the river for breakfast of Redband trout, the geese, ducks, red-tailed hawks, Osprey and the Great Blue herons that glide low over the water, land in the calm embankment and stand motionless, waiting for unsuspecting fish to swim by.
On the river shore there were three pairs of Canadian Geese nesting in the tall reeds. We sat close enough to observe them during our picnic lunch but far enough away to not disturb them. As a tribute to our childhood habit of eating sardines out of-the-can for school lunch (yes, our friends were grossed out) and as a nod to our Norwegian heritage, we ate the oily fish on crackers while looking up at the massive cliff face, listening for birds of prey so I could capture the sound on Merlin, a bird identifying app on my iPhone. We added avocado to the sardines to double up on the good fats. It’s what you do when you’re sixty-one. It wasn’t lost on me how challenging it was to get down on the ground at my age and sit comfortably. As kids, Scott and I would spend hours sitting on the ground building roads and cities in the black earth for our Hot Wheel collection, brushing aside ant invasions and falling pine needles to speed our Match Box cars along. After years of cancer treatment including steroids to reduce the hydrocephalous in my brain and inflammation in my liver, my muscles are not the same. From my six foot vantage point the ground seems a long way down and I now appreciate the utility of a park bench. I couldn’t spring up from our picnic and jump boulder to boulder, but with an arm extended by Scott he pulled me upright and we headed up the trail to the rim of the canyon where the car was parked. We knocked the dust of our pants and emptied the dirt and small pieces of gravel from our shoes.
I dropped Scott at the airport on the way home. At the curb we hugged goodbye and he invited me to visit him in Alaska where he’s made a life for himself since his mid-20’s. He married an Alaska Native woman, had a family and built a successful career with a Native Corporation (I married Annie who has a rich Native American ancestry you can read about here). He bought a used Cessna and had the engine rebuilt professionally to fly the 3 hours from Anchorage to Ekuk on Bristol Bay for his family fishing business, the fishing village where his wife, Clara, spent childhood summers helping her family harvest the salmon run with shore nets. Soon I would be in Alaska participating in the same annual salmon run with their family.
I feel like the golden light from my boyhood still had an ember burning in me and only needed a reminder from Scott to awaken the memories and begin a new adventure as old friends.
Keep your rabbit ears tuned for Part II of this story. Coming Soon!
Thank you, Bill! I appreciate you!
Wonderful account of your reunion with Scott. Your writing is rich in detail and spirit! A pleasure to read. Thank you for sharing Lars!