I can recall the sound of the wind
As it blew throught the trees and the trees would bend
I can recall the smell of the rain
On a hot summer night
Coming through the screen.

— mary chapin carpenter

—

I was meandering today through the Facebook posts of a former life when I saw him:

Third-Grade Gary.

Mrs. Swearingen was our teacher, and I think I was scared of her. I’m standing with a group of people who were my entire world at the time in what was a pretty great year. I thought it would last forever, and I would always know the words to the Crockett Elementary School Song.

Third grade in 1964 was a good time to be a kid. We had survived the whole JFK thing, and a Texas guy became president. We weren’t yet a target of the military draft. I was pretty excited about an album by a band that misspelled “beetles,” but I was more of a Beach Boys fan. We played baseball relentlessly, football because we were legally obligated to do do as Texas residents, and skated on boards with metal wheels that offered an open invitation to the emergency room.

And then I grew up.

Except I never really did.

I took Third-Grade Gary along on today’s run. We reminisced about the old days. He asked about whatever became of that Beatles band. He was in a pantomime group with mop top wigs and plywood guitars at the school talent show, so he was invested heavily. I told him they were pretty good until the bass player mysteriously died in a yellow submarine accident and nothing much ever happened after that. And Brian Wilson ended up in a sandbox in the living room. Third-Grade Gary was skeptical.

Where does that wide-eyed optimism of youth go? Endless horizons, mysteries around every corner, a world limited only by how far your Sting Ray bike would carry you.

We had a good run. He said it was a lot like the old days in West Texas. A scorching summer day, an icy water fountain, a small park with dogs and Frisbees. He politely settled into my pace as we made our little loops through time.

I told him about how we have watches now that do everything, phones that would baffle Dick Tracy, every song in the world at one’s fingertips. Except, of course, Kokomo. Nobody needs that. He wanted to know if they would play 45 rpm records. He had a collection he was worried about.

I didn’t tell him about what was down the road. How he would drop out of high school baseball because the coach would make the team run all the way around the football stadium followed by wind sprints, leaving young Gary to reject his Der Wienerschnitzel hot dogs outside the team locker room. I didn’t describe that first run from the grandparents’ house in Vancourt back to San Angelo, an unfathomable 20 miles. Or that first 18 mile race in Menard when he was just a kid and would line up with a small pack of hardcore runners. He would finish a distant last place, but they would wait and congratulate him like he had won the Olympics. Which, in a way, he had. About his first kiss and finding his true love and the people that would leave too soon.

Those aren’t my stories to tell. They’re his to discover, one bittersweet chapter at a time.

Mostly, we just talked. About life. About how we are both still terrified of flying monkeys. About how there is nothing better than an icy Dr Pepper after a hard outing. About why the Fit IPA Fancy Pants Training Plan© is making us go eight miles on what it bills as a short recovery day. About sliding into home plate after sprinting from third base even though the bases were loaded and the pitcher walked the batter, because those fields had red dirt and who would want to come home with a clean uniform. About living happily ever after, no matter how long ever after turns out to be.

And suddenly it made sense. I’m still Third-Grade Gary.

Funny how you can see a current photo of yourself and think there’s no way that’s you. But I see a third-grade photo of me and think, YES! I’m just a Cub Scout kerchief and a questionable haircut away from being back there.

And then he had to go. Something about homework or Surfer Girl or being polite about not wanting to hang out with an elderly gentleman. Just as I was about to offer him a beer.

Maybe the key isn’t to grow old gracefully.

Maybe the key is not to grow up at all.

In the words of Mr. Zimmerman,
I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now.

Have a good life, Third-Grade Gary. See you in 60 years or so.