The four of us lifelong friends had a difficult time dealing with the reality. Has it been nearly 20 years since we began pilgrimaging for a weekend on Ken Reeves' houseboat on Bull Shoals? Surely someone miscounted.
Nope. We counted all the fingers on four hands and determined it really was back in the fall of 1995 with the death of our classmate and close friend Bill Hudson that Ken suggested an annual gathering to appreciate how brief and fragile our time together truly is.
Congregating first thing in the mornings on the deck and again from twilight until whippoorwills summoned darkness, we were as content to be catching up and spinning tales as we once were motoring through coves in search of bass. But that's how it's been for us during the years since we pushed past Social Security age to face our seventh decade.
The early reunions (when we were pushing 50) meant hopping up before daylight to fish a few hours before breakfast. Then it was back out to flail the waters until lunch. And once again into the waves to return for grilling dinner by dark. Whew! Wears me bare just thinking about that period.
But wait just a minute. Is this some kind of cosmic joke? Turning 70 with grandchildren. Weren't we fresh-faced 15-year-olds full of mustard and vinegar just 30 or so years ago?
It sure seemed like that with feet propped up in lawn chairs on that deck reliving old teachers and flames while marveling over somehow surviving our careless (make that reckless) high-hormone years. We reflected on the ones from our classroom years already gone and how the number of them fading into memory increases each year, some since our 50th class reunion last fall.
Bill "C.W." Dill, a dentist in Fayetteville; Don Walker, a retired national corporate sales manager from Springdale; retired attorney Ken; and I, the poorer member, definitely had plenty of shared memories filed in the brain noodle that collects and stores recollections. It's actually impressive just how much we still know about the hows, whens and whereabouts of so many from our youth.
"Oh, he died two years ago from a sudden heart attack ... she married so-and-so after two divorces ... he went out west to hike and no one's heard from him since ... I saw her last year and she doesn't look anything like she did in high school. She was beautiful." Well, let's drop the fantasizing, fellas. How many of us do?
Ken brought a picture taken in 1961 at the Harrison Country Club when he and I comprised Harrison High's less-than-stellar golf team. I stared at the Dumbo-eared, twig-thin kid standing to Ken's right. "Yep. I promise that was you," he said. I still refuse to accept I ever looked like that in the years well before diabetes, A-fib and a chrome right hip.
He also brought a copy of himself, Don and Billy posing together for their Boys State picture in 1965. I pondered that photograph, wondering how is it they could still resemble weathered and wrinkled versions of the same baby-faced kids they were a half-century ago when I couldn't recognize myself in a photo from the same year.
Other than reminiscing, this 20th weekend was devoted to watching the muddy horse race, consuming various beverages and preparing for evening meals. Friday night's feast was ribs, beans, slaw and deviled eggs. No desserts anymore. We're avoiding sugar (as most mossback jaspers tend to do). Saturday's gorging featured grilled porterhouses, mushrooms, broccoli and fried potatoes.
Ken, who's beginning his third year as a state Game and Fish commissioner, is never more comfortable than when he's preparing crispy hash browns, ham, eggs and biscuits for breakfast. But even that can't hold a calorie to what's become our traditional final morning's meal that we've come to celebrate as the barrister's Bull Shoals Benedict.
See, I told you this gathering in recent years has evolved from frantic fishing jaunts into a darned-near geriatric experience of musings and mastication. And we never used to discuss our ailments and failings with such enthusiasm.
We did motor out to flog the water for several hours on Saturday with no luck. That's unusual since Ken and Billy both grew up fishing the lake with their fathers. They know Bull Shoals as well as the best guides. But continual noise and vibrational stir from a weekend fishing tournament can send even fearless fish into hiding.
Meanwhile, the bottle of 1965 Port we chipped in to buy 16 years ago still sits aging (probably dissolving into vinegar) high atop the kitchen cabinet. That's the bottle symbolizing our graduation year reserved for the sole survivor among us when that day arrives. Somehow, I just can't see it happening. I mean, how can some octogenarian (or older) single-handedly swill an entire bottle of decades-aged sweet Port on his own? Accordingly, we decided to make our reunion into a spring and fall gathering. One never knows, does one?
We might want to reconsider popping the dried-out cork and pouring a toast come September as a toast to Bill Hudson as the first among us to depart this world and to what quality years each of us has remaining.
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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.
Editorial on 05/28/2016