Rant #1,777: Talk Talk

No, I am not talking about the Presidential campaign, which will mercifully be over by midnight tomorrow.

I am talkiing about what happens when old friends get together to meet, dine and have fun on a Friday night after a long work week.

My friends and I got together on Friday night in Manhattan for what has become our three or four times yearly get together at a Manhattan restaurant.

This has been going on for about a year now, and it has been fun to see the kids you grew up with 50 years later.

Yes, these are the guys I knew as a little kid in my old haunts of Rochdale Village, South Jamaica, Queens, all those years ago.

They were the kids I went to school with, played ball with, and basically hung around with.

We have all gone our own separate ways in life, we haven't seen each other for decades, but when this whole thing started, I knew it was the real deal, because we sat down and talked as if we have kept up our friendships continuously over the decades.

It was like time never happened, the decades of separation never happened, and we eased into everything so smoothly.

Yes, even to this day, we are on somewhat the same wavelength, whether we are talking about every day life, our families, sports, politics, you name it.

I am a writer, another guy is in real estate, another is a lawyer, another is a banker, and one is retired from the computer field and the other is still in it.

This time, we met at a restaurant called The Smith on Broadway and in the 20s in Manhattan. It was a real watering hole, the place was filled to the gills with people, and you could barely hear yourself think, but we managed to make ourselves very clear to each other.

It was a lot of fun to meet up again, and we all have to thank a dear, departed friend, who passed away literally out of sight, out of mind, and spurred us to do this.

We aren't getting any younger, and the time to get together was now.

We all raise a glass to our friend Ron, who we know is in a better place now, and whenever we meet, we know he is there in spirit.

We plan on meeting again in a few months, and we will do the same thing, eat at another Manhattan restaurant on a Friday night after a hard week at work.

We have proven that even over the many decades, we are still connected at the hip, because we all went through the same things as kids living in this development, and even though the years have aged us, the memories are still there--as well as new memories that have been created in the intervening years that we can share with each other.

I look forward to our next meeting--each one of these has been fun, eye opening, and a nice reprieve from the same old, same old.

So to Peter, Stew, Brian, Andy and Howie--see you guys soon!