Beakdip's Banter

Banter? I just met her...

5.06.2003

Back in 1991 I was at a crossroads. I had decided to transfer colleges after my sophmore year at the University of Texas to Emory University in Atlanta. The decision was made by the fact that I had no friends at UT. I got in a fraternity and realized it wasn't for me. The last straw was when Jane's Addiction came to town and I couldn't get anyone to go with me. The Ritual tour, I think Clint Black was in town and all my "brothers" went to see him. So I went alone. The same week the Ramones came, and I went alone. So as much as I dreaded going back to the ATL, it would be better to at least have friends. In the interim, the summer of '91, I had gotten a job as a housekeeper in Glacier Bay, Alasksa. I would leave in mid-May and return at the end of August. To Atlanta. To Emory.
This was the greatest, scariest, saddest, most beautiful, and traumatic 4 months of my life. I grew that summer. I grew out of Texas and grew into my own. I met kids from all over the US; Oregon, Virginia, Montana, California. I felt at ease. I finally felt like I belonged. These people were unlike the one's I knew in Texas. They didn't judge me, I was accustomed to being put in "my place" by what kind of cowboy boots I was wearing. I know it wasn't Texas as a state, but it was the fraternal brotherhood which was anything but. Alaska was it. Yes, I was cleaning heads and beds for 8 hours a day but I was in Alaska. Friggin' Alaska!
The summer was hard, light, and long. Towards the end people were ready to go, me included. I was ready for the finer things in life, cable, beer, girls, and hell the Braves were making their first run at a World Series and I was in Alaska, get me out of here! But then everything changed.
Myself, Chan and Lawton, my friends from High-school who came with me for the summer, were all psyched to join about fifteen of our co-workers for a concert in nearby Homer. A small fishing town just a few mountain peaks over. It was going to be a blast. That was until we had found out that the other housekeeping shift had already asked for the same days off. We couldn't go. We were pissed. So while everyone left for the show we were left to clean toilets, great. So the remaining skeleton crew at the lodge made due by having our nightly card game with whatever cheap liquor we could find. Then it happened.
Our friend Milton, I think, came running into George's room where we were and said,"Hey guys, I just got a strange phone call from Jennifer in Homer. Jenny asked if we had seen Sharon and Randy and Lorna and her husband and Kearney walking around the lodge. I told her we hadn't. She said well, their plane left before ours and they haven't shown up yet. We're a little worried." We all stopped. we were white as sheets. We all thought, we were supposed to be on that plane.
Their plane crashed. The plane was found atop a mountain range in a mangled wreck. There were no survivors. They were all dead.
I don't know how I felt. I had been bullshiting with Sharon and Kearney not two hours earlier, bumming about how I couldn't go to the show. Now they were dead. Dead. They were so alive, so full of life and now they were gone. I have never felt such loss. I knew these people for three months, we lived together, we slept together, we worked together, we smiled together, we became best of friends, now they are a memory.
I think about those friends frequently, much more often than I thought I ever would. They were "summer friends," people who I shared a bond with but I knew, after the summer, I would probably never see them again. But I was wrong. I see them more now that they are dead than I think I ever would have if they were still alive.
That summer I grew. I grew into the person I always wanted to be but was afraid to let out because of what my peers may think of him. That summer I became my own man. I realized just how precious and fragile life is and how each and every person I meet is something special. I learned that people are good, people make life worth living, people can teach people, can love and people, can help me be a better person. I have kept that with me ever since that horrible day in August 12 years ago. I keep my friends in my heart. They are the one's who have made me who I am.

sez jefe on 10:43 AM link me

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