Not YOU.

Not those friends who keep track of my latest rants and raves via this blog.

Not friends who keep tabs on my travels via my Facebook page.

The friends irked are those who never hear from me by phone. Or snail mail. And too rarely even by email.

Why does that happen?

life gets busy

over the years your network of friends expands numerically, …

and disperses geographically

I’m tempted to get an iPhone, then call everyone I’ve ever known. (Dave Green used to ring in the middle of the night just to make the unexpected call more memorable.)

As I’ve grown older my interests have narrowed. I spend almost all my time on circus/gymnastics, the internet, fitness and travel. A long dinner party with friends at a restaurant is much less appealing than a quick drink or coffee.

(Though I successfully dodged an “Awards Banquet” last weekend, the fantastic meal I had recently at Adlard’s Candle in the Woods is the exception that proves the rule.)

I’m blathering.

Jay Mafukidze (who should know) circulated a poem which says it much better than can I:

Around the corner I have a friend,
In this great city that has no end,

Yet the days go by and weeks rush on,
And before I know it, a year is gone.

And I never see my old friends face,
For life is a swift and terrible race,

He knows I like him just as well,
As in the days when I rang his bell.

And he rang mine but we were younger then,
And now we are busy, tired men.

Tired of playing a foolish game,
Tired of trying to make a name.

“Tomorrow” I say! “I will call on Jim
Just to show that I’m thinking of him.”

But tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes,
And distance between us grows and grows.

Around the corner, yet miles away,
“Here’s a telegram sir,” “Jim died today.”

And that’s what we get and deserve in the end.
Around the corner, a vanished friend.

Poem by Henson Towne