Long Thoughts, Long Memories

I spent an hour tonight in a new bar which is the successor to a legendary dive bar in Chattanooga. Last May, the Stone Lion, a beer bar of epic grunge quotient, closed due to changing property ownership. Now, its sort-of reincarnation is open across a long stretch of town from the former location. A more spacious, still clean and more varied sort of place. Food is available. (The Stone Lion had a small microwave, in which you could heat food you brought in.)

I ran into a man I have known for thirty years, not seen in two or three. Later we were joined by a younger man known to both of us. We two older guys reminisced about past times and one particular past friend, who died of genetically determined heart disease twenty-two years ago. In the age of health-conscious aging boomers, and intolerance of all sorts of chemical and dietary excess, stories about long-ago drinking exploits and self-destructive abuse of one's body are the new taboo. We enjoyed swapping stories of excesses past, unburdened by the watchful eyes of the new morality police.

When people reach the vicinity of six decades of living, sometimes it is good to pore over the distant events that brought you to this point. As we slide down the steepening slope towards mortality, it is good to re-examine our lives, even those parts that seem in retrospect more than a little foolish.