Friends

I returned to Fallsington on Saturday February 1, 2014 for a memorial service for one of my best friends growing up, Rick Chiviott, at the Fallsington Methodist Church.  When I got to the church I sat in the back and as I was sitting there I noticed three women looking my way and I knew immediately they were trying to figure out who I was. I recognized Linda and Colleen from their pictures on Facebook.  I figured the third was Colleen’s sister Cathy.  They were older than me when I lived in Fallsington and one of my other best friends was Linda’s brother Mike.  Colleen and Cathy were our neighbors behind the house and they used to babysit me once in a while.  We were there to celebrate the life of our friend, Rick Chiviott.

I joined them in their pew and we got to talking about things going on around Fallsington.  They were proud that they were still living in town and being part of the community.  I think about all the good times I had in town and the friends I had and lost there and it made me sad that I couldn’t say I still live there.  After the service we continued the conversation and caught up with each other’s lives. We told stories of some of the things we did back in the day; chicken stealing off a grill, Linda’s Red Chevelle, sneaking into the neighbors pool when they weren’t home or asleep, and riding our bikes on the dirt trails where Nottingham is now down on Lower Morrisville Road.  As we were leaving the church we had a picture taken of the four of us.  We have all aged and maybe grown wiser, but still can call Fallsington home or the place we grew up in.

Colleen, Linda, William, Cathy

After I said my goodbyes I walked down to take a look at the old house.  My old neighbor Kevin was working on his son’s car in his garage and it made me think of the times he and I would work on bikes and cars in there.

We got talking about our lives and things going on and after a while he asked me if I missed living in Fallsington.  I looked him right in the eye and admitted to him that I did.  I missed the quiet and the friends I had in this town.  I missed being able to play football in the street without the fear of being hit by a car.  We reminisced about people we knew and those that had passed away and those that have gone missing from our worlds.  We got caught up on our families and parents and sisters.

I then took the time to drive through town and reflect about my friend Rick and all the fun we had as kids in this great town.  In the next few days I plan on writing more about Rick and my growing up in Fallsington and how he and the town made me….me.

I have an acquaintance, Jesse that I have met once in person and spent a few days hanging out with, but who I have worked with for over 2 years on the LOPSA education committee virtualy. I call him an acquaintance because I haven’t really hung out with him…but i guess if you drink with a guy for 4 hours that makes you friends…. He is a good guy and a damn fine sysadmin and friendly and a coffee fiend like no one else I know. Since I have known him he and his wife Heather Lee have bought a fabulous looking farm called Bullfinch Farm in Dane County Wisconsin . The day they singed the papers they went back to the farm to celebrate and walked into the house to be hit in the face by the smell of the world largest litter box. They still don’t know how they missed this smell in the final walk through as well as all the times they came to look at the farm. They had to remove all the floors and most of the walls and replace them. There was more to do but it’s not my story to tell. Jesse has also moved to a new job and is now working for a company in New York State.

After reading the info about Bullfinch Farm and what they are trying to do I realized that they remind me of certain people in my family. First of Fran and Angelica, by the way Jessy and Heather Lee dream of giving something back to the earth and to make a place for artists and thinkers and just regular people to have a peaceful place to come and work and relax and create. The list of “critters” as Jesse calls them reminds me of my aunt with all her chickens. I am sure that they will love the Southern Tier of New York and Pennsylvania. Welcome Jesse and Heather Lee to the Southern Tier.

This friend though was what I considered my best friend at the time and I use to wonder what happened to her when I would go home to see my folks and wondered what she was doing these days. She worked for a competing radio station when I worked for KZ106 and WCLI but when we weren’t working we were inseparable around Corning and Elmira. She and I talked music, about life and just hung out and had fun as platonic friends do. When I changed stations and shifts and then eventually moved out of the Bath/Corning area we had drifted apart and I never got to say goodbye…and I always felt bad about that and it was good to hear from her and know that she is doing well.

This is also the time of year I always get into a retrospective mood and always think about the past and all the people I never see anymore…all my friends from Fallsington that I heard from once or twice right after I was banished to Bath, Rick and Kathleen Chevet, Mike Capriotti. I do see my ex neighbor Kevin Reed once in a blue moon..he told me a kid who use to hang out with Mike, Kathaleen and me died a few years back, which shocked me Jay was a few years younger then me. Then there are the friends from The Hun School that probably don’t even remember me, but who I remember fondly as well as the friends from Newtown Friends School. I do hear from my buddy Bill Magod from NFS every few months or so..but don’t see him much since our schedules never seem to mesh.

I asked a question to a friend of mine at work the other day “if you could back to High School with what you know now and do it all over again would you?” She said she would..she of course asked me the same thing and of course I had some wise-ass answer because I didn’t want to admit I would go back farther then high school. I would go back to that second year of The Hun school and maybe really apply myself….see I was never one for school and back in 7th grade I just didn’t care and my following school years show it.

Even before I asked her the question I had been thinking about the past a lot and wondering how much my life and even me as a person would be different if I had done things differently? Would I have had to move to Bath if I had been doing better in school, would I have gone into radio at all, would I have gotten into computers and system admining? If this were a movie I would now be hit on the head, be knocked out and dream that I was back in 7th grade and see how life would be different.

Now don’t get me wrong I love and am happy with what I have become as a person and what I have done with most of my life, but we all have those few little things we did that we wish we could have done differently or not done at all. I turn 42 this July and I look back and realized that somethings I could have done differently. So as my life moves on it will always be in the back of my mind what if I had really studied for that science test or taken the time to really apply myself in high school instead of just trying to get by (my parents are nodding there heads right now saying “we told you so”) and going to college and getting the ever coveted degree, how would life be different for me and my family.