Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Visiting With Friends

Yesterday I got to see my friend Dave - he lives in Nova Scotia, not far from the city of Halifax. Dave and I grew up together, hung out as kids, had many of the same friends, had crushes on the same girls.... It was (and is always) great to see him. Whenever we get a chance to hang out we always have a good time and some really interesting conversations. While we were out roaming around we made our way to the town of Acton, Massachusetts, near where we grew up. We have a friend (one of the girls we had a crush on) who is a funeral director in town; she and her husband own and operate three funeral homes in the Assabet Valley. One of them happens to be in Acton, where her office is, and we had an opportunity to connect with her as well.

I hadn't seen Kathy in a very, very long time - probably pretty close to thirty years, and I must say I was totally blown away. She was a really pretty girl when we were kids, and if anything she is more beautiful now. And I hope her husband realizes his good fortune with respect to the woman he married, simply because he should. We had the nicest time just sitting and talking together. Of course Dave has seen her since - even though she and I have talked off and on, it was awesome to see her in person. We talked about our kids (she has two daughters, I think ages 18 and 15 or something like that - her daughters and my kids are not far off), we talked about where we've been, and we talked about the specter of Joe Magno still looming over many people. I know I am still affected by his presence in my life as a child, and I suspect that will never go away. But I do my best to deal with it; I have to as it is there every day that I live and breathe. And there are others that are just as strongly affected as I was. He damaged many people and destroyed some along the way as well, and unfortunately because he never went to trial due to his dying the day before it started there are many of us who are certain that justice will never be served. But unfortunately we have no control over that, and I've learned that there are some things that you simply have to learn to live with because rising above them is not possible.

I got about 4 non-consecutive hours of sleep last night as I worked in Goffstown. Tomorrow I'm in Boston for another 24 hours of amusement for someone. Certainly not me, but who knows? Maybe I will get a good laugh tomorrow. I can only hope so.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

It must be something about this place - good friends live in NS!!!

Unknown said...

Don't I know it, girlfriend!! :-)

Pete said...

Have been enjoying your new Cataldo stories immensely. Thanks for the regular postings.
My grandfather was born and raised in Antigonish, NS and my Dad spent his childhood summers there...They're both long gone, but damn, I gotta get up to NS and check it out. Just need to convince my wife that it's sunny and the water's warm...
Cheers, mate.

EE said...

The link doesn't work.

Unknown said...

which one?

EE said...

The words Joe Mango go to this: http:///manchmedic.blogspot.com/2007/01/monster-is-off-of-my-back_24.html

The ".html" part needs to come off or something.