The Picture of Hale Harris

Somewhere, there must be a portrait of Hale Harris that has been aging over the years. Because the man himself keeps getting younger with each passing reunion. If we ever have another one, my calculations indicate that he will appear as a teenager.



Hale Harris in 2017

Across a Crowded Room

Some enchanted evening, you may see a stranger.
You may see a stranger across a crowded room,
And somehow you know, you know even then,
That somewhere, you'll see him again and again.

When we first arrived at Southfork, the big house was full of people. We picked up our name tags in the front parlor and then started looking around the room at all the other name tags. Soon, we were meeting people, left and right. At one point, I looked over the shoulder of the person who was talking to me and instantly recognized someone on the other side of the room who, I noticed, was at that moment instantly recognizing me. It was Dick Abernathy. We both waded toward each other. We shook hands. I told Dick that I recognized him and he said that he recognized me. I told him where his old house used to be and he told me where my old house had been. We slapped each other on the back, and waded off into the crowd.

Later, out on the patio, we ran into each other again. I asked him if he had seen Caleb Wallwork. Much later, after the dinner under the tent and after the program, we ran into each other yet again. This time we didn't speak, but just smiled as we passed by, as though to acknowledge the essential futility of the situation.

I never thought I would get to do this

Betty and I were sitting in a half-circular booth in the Bistro, beneath a soft skylight, Saturday, at lunchtime. Archtypes of our school years were moving all around us. Out of nowhere, Cam Talley materialized in our booth, sitting next to Betty. We exchanged stories...

My mother drove me to my first day of school. I didn't like it one bit. I let Miss McCord know about it. Miss McCord took me to one side and said, "Look at Cam Talley, over there. It's her first day of school, too. But she's having fun, coloring, and getting to know everyone."

And, now, Cam Talley was sitting in my booth. We talked about Alan Cohen.

I said, "Alan told me that you were a cafe singer in Boston."

She said, "I was."

We never much thought

While riding on a train goin' west
I fell asleep for to take my rest
I dreamed a dream that made me sad
Concerning myself and the first few friends I had.

With half-damp eyes I stared to the room
Where my friends and I had spent many an afternoon
Where we together weathered many a storm
Laughin' and singing 'till the early hours of the morn’.

By the old wooden stove where our hats was hung
Our words was told and our songs was sung
Where we longed for nothin' and were satisfied
Joking and talking about the world outside.

With haunted hearts through the heat and cold
We never much thought we could get very old
We thought we could sit forever in fun
But our chances really was a million to one.

As easy it was to tell black from white
It was all that easy to tell wrong from right
And our choices they was few so the thought never hit
That the one road we traveled would ever shatter and split.

Now many a year has passed and gone
Many a gamble has been lost and won
And many a road taken by many a first friend
And each one I've never seen again.

I wish, I wish, I wish in vain
That we could sit simply in that room again
Ten thousand dollars at the drop of a hat
I'd give it all gladly if our lives could be like that.

Bob Dylan

Odell Tucker

There they all are in those eighth grade pictures - children, really. Right now, I'm looking at Johnny Boatman, Odell Tucker and Johnny Jenkins. But there were others, in the other schools. I remember Boatman as an interesting guy, but, in retrospect, you can see his future in his face, in that picture. That's not true of Odell. Look at his picture and what you see is a happy, funny kid.

What I don't understand is how they went from those pictures to hood-dom. That must have been some rite of passage. One that most of us missed out on.

Did they all go to see that Marlon Brando biker movie and get transformed? Did they suddenly see the light in a dark theater?...

Townsman: "What are you boys rebelling against?"

Brando: "Whaddya got?"

Or did they hear their ancestors calling them from Shiloh, Chickamauga and Redoubt Number One in South Nashville, telling them to get free?

The metamorphosis didn't take place overnight. But over the Hillsboro years, one by one, their pictures drop out of the Annuals.

The time we all remember is the week before graduation. We don't know what happened. We can only imagine...

There was no moon that night. The only light was from the houses that lined the streets. Maybe he told his mother he'd be home, soon. Maybe he didn't. He had nowhere special to go. The thing was to get out and ride.

He found the roads where the houses thinned out and opened it up, all the way, a few times. He felt safe and confident in the darker-than-dark night.

On his way home, he decided to make one last run down a road that was long, but lined with houses, half-hidden by trees. At the end of the road, a car was backing slowly out of a driveway. Black on black. Night on night... He racked it all the way back, leaned into the wind... and graduated early.

Reminiscing at the Reunion

I ran into Bill Daniel on the other side of the food line, Saturday night.

He leaned across and said, "You remember that bully I told you about who chased me all over the playground in the sixth grade?"

I said, "Yeah."

Bill said, "He's here tonight!"

I said, "Let's you and me take him outside and straighten him out."

Bill flashed that famous Bill Daniel grin and said, "Deal!"

And we moved on down the line.

When We Was Fab

A note from Alice Ann, today, reminds the Stokesians among us that the big deal is about a week away. If the Stokes contingent is representative of what's going on this time, then there's a lot going on - more than the last two times put together. And those last two times were no slouch, either.

There is a great anticipation, this time - that's what's different. I'm looking forward to this more than I did the last times. I imagine the thing - it's like the song: "I'm going to go 'round, shaking everybody's hand." People I thought I'd never see again.

If I were a crying man, I'd be gearing up about now. I'd be hearing bagpipes in the distance. I'd be thinking about being able to publish nonsense in the United States of America and get away with it. I'd be thinking about Johnny Wilson's Civil War, and Bill Daniel's bullies, and Rick Drewry's Uncle Dean and Tandy, and Caleb Wallwork's amazing data-driven history, and Edward Lyman's Cadillac and Copeland's fancy Texas boots...

We're going to have a good time. We're going to make all them other classes wish they was us.