Bookends

 I met my buddy Hillel at The Field in Central Square (Cambridge) last night. It was one of our rare nights of having dinner in town versus here on the Neck at our happening local joint, Louis.

He sits down next to me at the bar and, first thing out of his mouth, ‘happy anniversary.’ Huh? Y’all just MUST know that I blow King Kong sized chunks when it comes to remembering birthdays, anniversaries and such. But then it came back to me (OK he helped bring it back), we met, a bazillion and three quarter years ago (29 to be precise) on July 17th when I was hired on at the print/copy shop where he was employed.

Over these 29 years we’ve been getting together regularly for dinner, laughs and mondo scrutiny of every last little thing going on in our lives. We may have missed one or two bits but that’s only ‘cause we’re all fastidious and shit. There’s no issue we’re unable able to talk to death (a fun yet lingering and thorough death, mind), bury, resurrect to full zombie glory, toy with like Coco 'plays' with her mouse ‘friends’ and then drop an Egyptian obelisk on for the final-ish kill (my fav zombie killing method).

You’d never think Hillel and I would have much in common -- there’s an Adriatic or two worth of difference between our temperaments. Here we are though, 29 years later, still having dinner, drinks and radical dissections together every week or three.

I loved going over to his place to hang when we first met. He lived in a big old, run down triple decker near Brookline Village (well before the area was all posh) with two awesome roomies -- one being of the knight in shining armor variety. They had a pet gerbil who was allowed to roam free (yeah, I know -- this is playing in your head now too) Freaked me right the fuck out when I first saw Hemingway racing out of a cupboard to his food dish. And then I wanted to pet him and hold him but he’d slipped away into the walls. Ah well.

Over these past THREE decades, since those gerbil watching, spanakopeta snarfing (the man knows his way around the phyllo dough!), smoke filled evenings so much more LIFE has happened.

 Hillel hitchhiked across the US, sleeping in fields. Caught a flight to New Zealand and on to Australia. China next, where he got mugged by some nasty ass infection, ending up a guest at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Hong Kong for a month. I think he should write about this here -- don’t you?!

He came home, married, dropped three sprogs (one’s leaving for college next month -- eek!), became a grant writer and does all those long ass bike rides like the Pan Mass Challenge and the Boston/NY AIDs ride. Yep, the boy’s in some serious shape.

Hillel and I both eventually moved out of the city and into the ‘burbs -- him to Newton and me to the Neck.

We both wanted to be closer to our places of worship. 

The Newton Center Minyan for him. The beach for me.

Song for Hemingway (the gerbil)