I’m listening to “The Last Waltz” by The Band right now. I remember getting The Band’s second album when I was a kid and being so taken by it. I played that LP so much I could see through it after a while. My best buddy at the time was a couple of years younger than I. He played guitar. I mean, he could really play. He’d come over and we’d listen to The Band and we'd play along. He could play all of Robbie Robertson’s licks with precision. Anyway, the next year, I went to a different school and we lost touch. I saw him a couple of times after that but I haven’t even thought of him ‘til now.

I never had a lot of friends...at a time, that is. You’d think, therefore, that I would have treasured the friends I’ve had a lot more than I have. But friendships were so disposable when I was young. You remember Kenny. We were close. We played guitar in a folk group. We were both photography geeks. Hell, I even dated his sister for a long time. We hung out together a lot when we were going to college in the early seventies. I graduated in 1974, got a job two thousand miles away and I haven’t heard from him since. I broke up with his sister six months later and I haven’t heard from her either.

It didn’t really matter to me at the time. I’m the kind of guy who will make a big change and never look back. I didn’t hang onto relationships. Actually, if I had held those people closer to me, I’d probably have a lot more friends today. I dunno. Friendships are precious to me. It’s just that people change. They move on. But, you know, it’s getting harder to let go as I get older.

I married luvofmylife twenty five years ago. I didn’t really believe in marriage back then but she wanted to tie the knot so I went along. I’m still not sure if I believe in marriage but I do believe this; I would almost certainly have let her fade from my life the same way all my other friends have without our marriage. It forced us to make a commitment to each other. So, during those times in our relationship when there’s been a lull, (There are always lulls in any relationship, bye the way) or distractions like career or a change of venue, there’s still a point of reference in our lives when we made a formal commitment to each other, in front of witnesses, that we’d be together.

I’m ever so grateful for that point of reference because, over those 25 years, there have been times when we were a little less than enthusiastic about each other. We could have come to an end at any time. And we wouldn’t have what we have now – better than ever. And she’d be just another memory, a faded image. And that would've been a tragedy.

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