TWO SHORT AT THE TABLE...

I received a text message from a pal almost a week ago, telling me that someone we both knew had died.  He'd had cancer, but at only 58 he was taken far too soon.  He was one of a group who used to hang around with me on occasion, either all together or in smaller sections.  There were six of them altogether, and one of me, so I suppose, had I been clever enough to think of it at the time, I would probably have considered us my town's equivalent of the Magnificent Seven.

There was me, Stuart, Alec, Dougie, Tony, Laurie, and Ricky (aka 'Britt'), and I was odd man out I suppose, in that they all knew one another (four of them being two sets of brothers, so it wasn't hard) before I arrived on the scene.  In a previous post, I recounted the story of how I acquired the nickname of 'Kid' in my teenage years (which you can read by clicking here), and three, perhaps four of the lads alluded to in that post were from the above-mentioned group.

Because I was a year or two older than the others, they tended to regard me as the 'leader', which wasn't a position I aspired to, but it usually just naturally falls on the shoulders of 'the elder of the tribe', doesn't it?  Nowadays they'd probably laugh at the very idea of such a thing, perhaps even deny it, but when a trio of neds started a fight with three or four of us one night, I was the one expected to defend the group's honour, while they stood quite a distance behind me.  It fell on me to take the blows and return them, though actually I was only hit once before I swung into action.

Anyway, 'Britt' died a good number of years ago, and I only learned of it long after the event a handful or so years back, and Tony died on Friday or Saturday.  There's only a couple of the guys I'm still pally with, but as one of them lives in England somewhere, I haven't seen or heard from him in years.  It's sad to see the ranks diminish, even when they've moved on, married, had kids, and left their old lives behind.  Nothing in my life has really changed in 35 years, so I sometimes feel frozen in time, while everyone else has climbed several other levels on the ladder of life.

It all only seems like yesterday to me, so clear and fresh are the escapades we got up to and the happy times we shared as teenagers.  Hard to believe that the old group is now short of two members at the table, and I can't help but morbidly wonder who might be next.  Is it wrong to hope that it isn't me?  Do you ever think of departed friends and keep their memory alive in your mind, or have they faded over time like the scent of summer on the evening breeze?    

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