Friends and Strangers

My friend Mack was in town for a quickie visit, and as I headed to meet him at the St. Andrews for a drink the other night I thought about telling my friend Alan, due for a visit just days later, that I’d seen him.
Then it occurred to me: Alan won’t care. He doesn’t know Mack.
This sort of thing happens not infrequently to me. My brain tends not to file friends under geographic or temporal headings, but the fact is those are divisions they arise from.
I’ve lived significant chunks of my life in different places: youth on the Mississippi coast; college in North Mississippi; a few years back on the coast; then to Jackson; then to Nashville; now on Long Island.
All along the way I’ve picked up friends: Furby, McCool, Gary, Sherry, Vaughn, Brad, Ed, Carolyn, Kim, Glenn, Nancy, Tori, Lew, Mona, and so on. They all pretty much rattle around in my head in the same file folder, marked “Active,” no matter how long it‘s been since I saw them.
It’s as if they’re all hanging out at the same nonstop mental party, and I’m the host.
Leaving aside for a minute the fact that I am in reality a terrible host, this concept works quite well for me. Until, as in the case of the other night, I find myself about to refer to one person in conversation with another, and realize that while both are friends to me, they are strangers to each other.
Over the past decade or so this has happened most frequently with my wife (picked up in Nashville, by the way). As a result I’ve learned, for the most part, to attach explainers when mentioning someone she’s hasn’t met: my old high school buddy McCool, for instance. Who, I will sometimes add, was the personable guy everybody gravitated to, sort of like Brad, only not. That way I‘ve linked somebody she does know, Brad, to someone she doesn’t, to strengthen the association.
She usually nods, as if to say, Oh yes, your old high school buddy McCool, etc. Good wives humor husbands like that.
In that same way Mack used to always be “my friend Mack, the comedian.” That changed when Mack came to stay for a couple of days last fall. Now the reference to him is much shorter -- Mack -- in addition to being more meaningful.
With that in mind, I propose that all my friends -- and for this purpose I include my wife -- take it upon themselves to meet one another.
Some had an initial opportunity to do this a few years ago, when I had a 50th birthday party in Jackson and a number of people attended. But not everybody made it, and even among those who did I suspect that no one met everyone. I know I certainly didn’t make enough introductions (see “terrible host,” above) for that to have occurred.
And maybe, in this day of technology, they wouldn’t even have to get together at all. Surely they all have e-mail addresses. They could form some sort of discussion ring, or whatever it is such things are called. Exchange biographical information, perhaps include little essays about how they came to know me, the significance I hold in their lives, that sort of thing. Tell funny stories, taking care not to find the humor too much at my expense.
This would make things simpler for me, without imposing an undue hardship on them. I mean, they’re all good people, or they wouldn’t be on my friends list. They’d be sure to get along fine.
(this needs a better ending. it sort of thuds. i plan to come along and revise it at some point.)

A Reason to Root

(this was originally written in april 2004...)

Finally, after five years in New York, I have a reason to pull for a local football team. As of last Saturday, I’m a Giants fan.
Eli’s coming.
I admit, my loyalties are fluid. I was prepared to be a Chargers fan, until Eli said he didn’t want to be a Charger. I considered the possibility that the Raiders might draft him second, which would have been fine. I could have pulled for the Raiders, even if they do have Charles Woodson, who robbed Peyton of the Heisman Trophy. But the Giants possibility sure looked sweet.
Broadway Eli.
I grew up in Moss Point, Miss. There were no local teams in any professional sport when I was a kid, so I affiliated myself through my favorite players. In 1961, my first year in organized baseball, I became a Yankees fan because of Roger Maris.
In 1967 I switched allegiance to the Red Sox, courtesy of Carl Yastrzemski. I stayed with the Sox through the Clemens years. When the Sox dumped him, I dumped them, and became a Toronto Blue Jays fan - every five days.
And then a Yankees fan again.
And now, every five days, an Astros fan. I sort of wish the Rocket would stay put.
In a similar fashion but a different sport, I became an Ole Miss football fan in 1968, after reading about this skinny quarterback named Archie Manning who Coach Johnny Vaught thought might become pretty good.
Smart guy, Coach Vaught.
The NFL draft of 1971 made me care about the New Orleans Saints, and I followed them through all Archie’s ill-fated seasons there. Then Bum Phillips came along as coach, and out went Archie. I couldn’t find it in me to pull for the Oilers or Vikings as Archie’s career fizzled to an end. But I abandoned the Saints, and nurtured a cold contempt for Bum that exists to this day.
The college recruiting of Peyton revived my Manning fascination. I understood why he chose not to go to Ole Miss. I would have loved to see him at Florida State (my adopted alma mater, owing to my esteem for Bobby Bowden) but OK. I could accept Tennessee.
After all, I was living in Tennessee by then. So what if the school color is so scorchingly ugly that it hurts even my color-blind eyes. So what if one of my happiest days ever was the Saturday when Archie Who and the Rebels beat UT 38-0 after a certain Volunteer linebacker spoke ill of the Rebel talent.
As I said, my loyalties are fluid. I learned to embrace my inner Vol and, with astonishing ease, came to hate the Florida Gators. (Assisted by my Florida State affection.) They were four good years. I even managed, through residual affection, to feel reasonably happy a year after Peyton’s departure, when the Vols won the national championship. Over my Seminoles.
Ideally, to keep my NFL allegiance in-state, the Tennessee Titans (nee Oilers) would have drafted Peyton, but they were too far down in the draft order and didn’t need a quarterback anyway. So he went to the Indianapolis Colts, testing my ability to warm to a franchise that, let’s face it, shouldn’t even be in Indianapolis.
I warmed. I now want the misplaced Colts to win a Super Bowl. A couple, even.
Eli’s decision to attend Ole Miss renewed my link, never severed, with my true alma mater. I waited through a redshirt season. I waited while he backed up Romaro Miller. I waited through a winning season with no bowl game and, finally, enjoyed the first 10-win season since my freshman year.
Onward to the pros. But where?
From Tennessee I had moved on to New York, where I had no local allegiance. If Peyton had bypassed his senior year, he might have been drafted by the Jets, a team that Joe Namath once made my favorite. (I also, for years, favored first the 49ers and then briefly the Chiefs for their quarterback named Joe. Hey, you blame me?) I could easily have revived my Jets fervor if Peyton had come along.
But he didn’t. Joe Willie’s Jets legacy wasn’t strong enough to command any enduring affection, and I couldn’t find any reason at all to focus on the Giants, a team with all the charisma and appeal of the Microsoft Corporation.
Enter Eli.
It wasn’t pretty. I would have preferred that the Giants traded up to take Eli, relieving him of the booing he got when the Chargers selected him. But all’s well that ends well, I read somewhere, and that Giants blue and red is close enough to the Rebels red and blue.
I may buy a hat. Even a No. 10 jersey.
Fran who?