I saw him see me. He turned and headed my way.
“Cam,” he said, “how’s you mother?”
“Well,” I said, “she passed away two years ago.” I saw you at her funeral, I wanted to say. I remember talking to you.
“Oh, yes. That’s right. I’m sorry. Well then, how’s your father?”
“Dad’s wonderful. He plays pickleball five, sometimes six days a week, sometimes twice a day. He’s eighty-seven, but I don’t think he knows it. He’s great.”
“Well, that’s wonderful. Please tell them both I said hello.”
“I- I sure will. Thanks.”
The grocery store closest to my house is the one I got to least often. The trip takes too long. At any moment of the day, there is someone in there that wants to chat, wants a short visit. In the middle of the day, when I go in to buy something quick for lunch, someone like this is likely there, usually friends of my parents. They’re in no hurry. The grocery store I go to when I’m in a hurry is actually a bit further away. It’s quicker.
Conversations like this, with this older gentleman, while a bit comical and maybe a bit sad, mean something. “I know you,” he was saying. “I know your people. You and me, we’re connected. We fished when you were a young boy. Your dad and I hunted turkeys together.” As a young man, I wanted no part of this. I didn’t want to be reminded of myself as a boy. I wanted anonymity. I wanted a blank slate and to make my own way as a man. So, I left my hometown for two decades. Today, the opposite is now true. It’s become important to me. It’s a 180 degree about face. I like it, though, a bit comical and a bit sad at times, I like it. It’s roots.
There’s something about old connections, about roots, about generations of pasts that intertwine. I once dismissed this as unimportant. I felt that these were silly things cherished by simple, small-minded people. I was a young man then. I was bulletproof, and I knew it all. I’ve had a 180 degree about face. They’re important now more than ever as I look around at who I’ll grow old with, how we’re connected, and how my connections may show up in my kid’s worlds in some unknowable way in the future.
And I see one of my friend’s adult children in the grocery story. I knew him when he was a boy. I tossed him balls, maybe, or cooked him pancakes in his pajamas at my house on a Saturday morning, and I go to him, and I say, “Hey! Tell me. How’s your father? I miss him. Please tell him I said Hello.”
I’m Cam Marston, and I’m just trying to Keep It Real.
