Last week an old friend came over for dinner with his family. Geordie and I practiced law together 25 years ago. He moved back to Portland and other than one brief encounter about 3 years ago, I haven't seen him in probably 18 years. His son and Maggie are the same age and both were babies the last time we spent any time together. It was great to see him and his family and all those years melted away as we reminisced and bored his kids and Maggie with old stories.
Geordie was a few years behind me and I was one rung up on the food chain. For a short while, I was kinda sorta the associate to whom he reported. He and Craig, another lawyer, were hilarious and those were some fun years. They did a video mocking my office full of books and my encouraging style of editing their work. I never realized until I saw that video that I would constantly tell them what a great piece they had written while completely changing it. The video showed only a head behind huge stack of books effusively praising the work and then handing over a legal brief with red marks and inserts completely covering the page. Made me laugh then, and still does today.
Because I was older and wiser I was the first of that group to have babies. (Babies were a sensitive subject for female attorneys when Eddie was born in 1988 and probably still is today. That subject is for another day, however.) Geordie and Craig took it upon themselves to shower Eddie and Tim with gifts - always the noisiest gifts possible.
Before they arrived for dinner, Geordie's wife Lori was texting me about the plans to get together. She advised that Geordie was bringing a Bow and Arrow set for Tim and a drum set for Eddie. That made me remember something and I knew I had a picture. I went upstairs and stated digging through old pictures* until I found what I was looking for. Eddie holding the JACKHAMMER those guys gave him when he was about three.
You cannot imagine how loud that thing was. But my boys loved it and played with it all the time. ALL. THE. TIME.
It was hilarious to hear Geordie and Lori tell their kids about visiting here with our two wild boys jumping on furniture and racing around while Steve and I were calm cool and collected. (Funny, I don't remember either the wildness or ever being calm.) They said we made it look easy so they figured having kids wasn't that big of a deal.
(Picture me with my head thrown back laughing wickedly.)
It was amazing to think back to those times before Maggie was born. Our life was just as crazy then as it is now, but in a more conventional way. Maggie was not nearly as entertained as we were, though, because even if she wasn't born, she cannot imagine a time when she was not the center of the world.
*Lest you think otherwise, I did give Eddie fair warning that I was going to post this picture and he put it on facebook first.
I love it -- all of it!
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