Suzie
A very, very, very long time ago … so long ago, Eisenhower was still president – there was this girl you see …
3 foot two; eyes of blue. At the time.
I remember her mother and mine being good friends.
I remember Scott White … but I don’t remember getting into a fight with him over her. But she does.
I remember smoking corn silk cigarettes with her behind the garage.
I remember discovering the differences between boys and girls with her … behind the garage. When too young to care.
I remember that garage … 🙂
I remember “breaking up” when her family moved away. (Kennedy might have been President by then. Maybe not yet.)
I remember our family moving away … then her family moving into the neighborhood we had moved to.
I remember we got “engaged” on our front porch. Kennedy was President by then.
I remember she was the first girl I saw naked when I was old enough to appreciate such things for what they were. Earlier didn’t count.
(I remember it was a couple more years before that happened again.)
I remember our paths splitting apart when puberty hit. Way apart.
I remember her complaining I spent too much time studying and not enough partying (just how much was enough???)
I remember my youngest brother asking when she had gone into heat when she got pregnant young.
I remember hearing she died in a drug deal gone bad down in Mexico someplace.
I remember finding out – 40 years later – she hadn’t died. (But I had gotten used to idea she had died.)
I remember finding she had tuned into a burned out, worn out, bedraggled druggie living on welfare in “public housing”.
I remember finding out we had nothing in common except hazy, half-remembered, no longer desired memories.
I remember today is her birthday.
I know memories can carry more weight than reality.
Happy Birthday, Suzie. I know where you are … and it doesn’t matter anymore.
Well now. We’re getting somewhere 🙂
If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll always get there.
cold 🙂
I get that way.
If I don’t make plans, they don’t go awry.
She looks like a girl I knew in school more than half a century ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_dLoOXy8PA
Somebody That I Used to Know
Now and then, I think of when we were together
Like when you said you felt so happy you could die
Told myself that you were right for me
But felt so lonely in your company
But that was love, and it’s an ache I still remember
You can get addicted to a certain kinda sadness
Like resignation to the end, always the end
So when we found that we could not make sense
Well, you said that we would still be friends
But I’ll admit that I was glad it was over
But you didn’t have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened and that we were nothin’
And I don’t even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger, and that feels so rough
No, you didn’t have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records and then change your number
Guess that I don’t need that, though
Now you’re just somebody that I used to know
Now you’re just somebody that I used to know
Now you’re just somebody that I used to know
Now and then, I think of all the times you screwed me over
But had me believin’ it was always somethin’ that I’d done
But I don’t wanna live that way
Readin’ into every word you say
You said that you could let it go
And I wouldn’t catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know
But you didn’t have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened and that we were nothin’ (ah)
And I don’t even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger, and that feels so rough (ah)
No, you didn’t have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records and then change your number (ah)
Guess that I don’t need that, though
Now you’re just somebody that I used to know
Somebody I used to know
Somebody (now you’re just somebody that I used to know)
Somebody I used to know
Somebody (now you’re just somebody that I used to know)
I used to know
That I used to know
I used to know somebody
I like that tune. It was playing as I scribbled this down.
That picture is more than a half century old – ’69 as I recall 🙂
Damn – I’m not sure if that was long, long ago … or a few months ago.
Life is hard. Some people realize that you grind out a difficult day, then know you have to do it again tomorrow, and the next day too. Others are a river delta spread out looking for the easiest path of resistance that always leads down, down, further down. There are a million variations in between those two extreme examples. We’ve probably all been fond of someone that eventually turned into a train wreck. Maybe we dodged the bullet.