CONVERSATIONS WITH CHUCK

Chuck...airport job...03-2008.

I first met Chuck when I was working on the crew at UT a couple of years ago.We were tool buddies at Brazos Place and the airport.After the airport job he got laid off and went on to work for another company.
I remember the day he got his walking papers,everyone was surprised,but that's how it goes in this trade.I'm very lucky to have been with the same contractor the whole time...crosses fingers and knocks on wood...
We said we would stay in touch and we have.I've got my close long time friends from the treatment center days and even some from high school,I've made good friends with some fellow electricians,but it's mostly on the job friendship.Even with Clark,I'm sure if he lived in town we would hang out,but he doesn't and we don't,but we are tight nonetheless.
But Chuck is another story.He has a similar background...he was in the social work game as well,so we have that affinity.He's a thinker and has a similar connection to this thing we call life that I have.We click.
We talk about god...not in that smarmy evangelical way,but in terms of understanding the terrain we are currently deployed on,and how god works through people who make a difference,because,as Chuck say's "I guess he can't do it himself".I'm not sure what his leanings are as far as religion is concerned,we've never discussed it.I lean to a Buddhist way of looking at the world,but we've never discussed that either.
I just know that somehow I am a better person by virtue of my connection with him and I'm proud to know him...sure,he's crusty-but so am I.
He tells me tonight how it amazes him that I have managed to hold on to my past,what with my connections to Toody et al and my reconnect with Carolyn and a number of other people from the past that I see on occasion...like the guy that owns the florist shop I went to high school with,and Brian the guitar player-also from high school.And the list goes on.He has only his memories...nothing on this mortal coil,but he says in his next life he might try my way of doing the memory thing.
I'm a very lucky man in many respects I guess.
You should be so lucky.
That's a wish.