It was April 19, 1975, and I was at a wedding reception. A friend had put together what we now call a mix tape, and the song playing at that moment was Jackson Browne’s “Ready or Not.”
The song is about a young man learning that his live-in girlfriend is pregnant, and it was a current favorite the groom had asked the friend making the tape to include.
My friend Bill Madden came up to me and asked, “Isn’t this song a little bit inappropriate?”
I might have asked him why ask me, except I was the person who had requested it. After all, I was the groom and it was my wedding day. Bill and I had been friends for a little more than two years and he possessed one of the traits I value most in people — a wonderful sense of humor.
It’s ironic. I remember so much about that day, but this spring it will be 44 years since I have had any contact with the woman I married that day. And other than my younger siblings, the only person who is really still in my life is Bill Madden.
I remember reading somewhere that if you live long enough, you will lose everyone you ever loved. It was in reference to the oldest woman in America passing at age 115. Her husband had died 70 years before her and she had never remarried. Her children and all of her grandchildren had died before her, but she had three more generations of descendants still alive.
I was 58 at the time, and the thought of living to 115 horrified me. Still does. I had a 2-month-old granddaughter at the time, and I realized she would be 57 if I lived that long. I had only lost my grandparents and my dad at that time, but in the years since, I have lost my mother and several friendships.
I always used to say that what made me feel old wasn’t knowing my own age, but knowing how old my youngest siblings were getting. The youngest one will be 65 later this year, two months before I turn 77.
I have friendships dead or dying that I would have sworn would never end. I lost one friend two years ago to pancreatic cancer, and another friendship is dying due to a lack of trust.
I have three friendships left that truly matter to me. One is 63 years duration — back to middle school — and another goes back to 1980 and is a woman I love dearly. We came close but never married.
The other is Bill.
My first published novel, a humorous book about pro football, was a collaboration with him.
One of the best feelings I ever had in my life was opening a package from Amazon and holding a book I had coauthored in my hands.
Bill and I actually wrote a handful of songs together in 1973. Nothing much ever came of them and my regret was that I couldn’t play them, on guitar or sing them on key.
He is nearly four years younger than I am and has survived two bouts of cancer in the last 10 years. Neither one of us will live forever, but I hope God gives him at least as many years as He gives me.
He’s the one person who is neither a relative or a woman that I would say I truly love.